Christmas decorations

Tetsu and I spent Saturday putting up Christmas decorations around the house. I still can't find one box but I think except for the Christmas tree decorations everything else is up. Tetsu put lights up around the house and on one of our outside trees. My little plastic Christmas tree sits on the end table next to the sofa but it is still bare. Maybe the English kids will enjoy decorating it for me today.

HOWEVER... We seem to have a major problem this year because Chip and Toi find the decorations I've put up to be the absolutely most wonderful cat toys they've ever seen. They especially like my plastic canvas needlepoint creche that at the best of times tends to fall over. The creche figures are light, furry and have pretty colors, just right for kitties to carry around and play with. Toi and Chip have invented a type of ornament hockey and they bat Jesus, the sheep and the Wise men around the floor and I find donkeys and shepherds in my shoes (Japanese shoes are taken off at the front door and are left at a step lower than the floor right?) I can't think of another place to put my needlepoint creche this year so maybe it will go back in the box before some of the figures are lost.



Here is what this creche is SUPPOSED to look like. I shudder to think what the cats are going to do the hanging Christmas tree ornaments.

Persimmons

One of the sights that I love most in autumn are hanging persimmons. In Japan, most farms have two or three persimmon trees and even in the forest, wild persimmon trees can be found heavy with fruit. When it rains or after the night's dew fall, the tree trunks and branches turn such a dark color they look like silhouettes against the sky. The leafless trees seem to be hung out with hundreds of little orange Christmas balls!

There are two types of persimmons, (that I know of...) sweet persimmons and stringent persimmons. The sweet ones, well, you can eat them right off the tree. But the stringent ones... Wow! Take your tongue right out of your mouth! However, stringent persimmons can be made edible by drying them and of course the drying process means that persimmons can be eaten throughout the winter.

Persimmons are peeled with the stem left on and then they are tied 5 or 6 to a rope. The ropes are hung out over a line or a pole and left to dry in the very cold pre-winter air. In case of a sudden rain the persimmons are hung out under the eaves or they are hurriedly brought into the house or farm shed. In the past couple weeks, wherever I go I see curtains of persimmons drying on the balconies and next to farm houses. Occasionally there will be daikon radishes out there too being dried for winter pickling. I've seen persimmons drying outside of apartment windows and even on the kindergarten playground!

In Southern California I rarely had persimmons so to me these are a very Japanese delicacy and the screens of drying persimmons blend in so nicely with Japanese countryside architecture. The patterned tile roofs, the rough wood frames around the windows, the gold and yellow of the autumn leaves. To me, drying persimmons is the ultimate of Japanese scenery.

I have tried drying my own persimmons but my few attempts ended in disaster when I let them get damp in the rain or dew and they molded! I'll never make a good traditional Japanese housewife. That's okay! I have people like my friend Mrs. Ide who brought over a few persimmons that she'd dried in her front yard. Tetsu was overjoyed and gobbled up these delicacies with a cup of steaming green tea. He's very glad I have friends who can do all these things his foreign wife can't!

Hen-pecking

Hmm. Do I want to talk about trials or do I want to talk about normal life? Well at least I don't think of normal life as being a trial...

Yesterday I saw Japanese society first hand at its worst. I had to go to a Homeowners meeting last night because of my position as a traffic/safety officer. Last night's meeting was attended by all the neighborhood block heads, the Homeowners Association Chairman, co-chairmen, various officers and the Child-raising Association's Chairman (in this case a chairwoman). Maybe 25 people in all. The Child-raising Association's Chairwoman, Mrs. T also brought her 7 year old son Ken, who comes to me for English.

I never did understand the problem but somehow there was a misunderstanding between Mrs. T and the Homeowner Association. Fewer parents are taking part in the Child-raising Association, however, they still have duties that pertain to the children but also service the whole neighborhood; festivals and field trips etc. A request was made by Mrs. T to have the Homeowner Association take over some of the duties (she doesn't have man-power behind her) but boy, did she get jumped upon!

Do you know what I mean when I talk about a hen-pecking party? When one person does something that doesn't gel with the group and then everyone starts getting vocal, pointing fingers, accusing, words flare and feathers start flying around the room. A few people are indignantly and loudly discussing the irresponsibility of others, everyone is talking at the same time and most of the talk are attacks on the original person who made the unfavorable comment or did something out of the ordinary.

Last night's fiasco was aimed at Mrs. T and she was accused of being a shirker, being irresponsible, being a poor leader and an uncooperative follower. Mrs. T was defending herself but other attacks flew at her from all sides. A few of us sat and looked at the floor and one man tried to come to her defense, and he was attacked too. (He has always been ostracized anyway in the neighborhood so he probably figured a few more black marks could hardly hurt him).

"If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem."

My face grew red and I thought, "Here I am not saying a word and watching Mrs. T try to make people understand her position. For all she knows I'm silently accusing her also. I am part of the problem."

I really didn't understand the situation but I did understand that Ken was watching out of the corner of his eye as his mother was being verbally abused.

So in the midst of the flurry I whispered to Ken to come with me, tapped Mrs. T on the shoulder and told her I was taking him and walked out of the heated room. On the way home, holding my hand, Ken said,

"Everyone was angry at my mom."

"Your mom was pretty angry too. That's okay. She's strong! She was doing a good thing."

Ken and I went home and ate packaged cookies and read I SPY pages and played UNO for the next hour. When his mother came to pick him up she burst into tears and allowed me to give her a hug.

"I didn't cry in front of everyone. I held it in until now. I shouldn't have brought Ken to begin with. Thank you for taking him out of there."

I wasn't part of the solution but at least I didn't sit there and be part of the problem either.

Headaches

I've got a headache from playing around with my dumb Christmas cards. And yes, I know if I'm going to complain and be in such a grumpy mood that I should zilch the plans to send out Christmas cards at all because it is not in line with the Christmas spirit.

I messed around for most of the day on Tuesday trying to get my pictures right and I finally called my friend Mrs. Ochiai (the computer genius!) and asked her advice. Actually I just sent her the picture and asked her to put a proper frame on it so that the camera store would take it. She kindly did and sent it back to me within an hour.

I managed to download my picture into a memory stick (oh I am learning how to do so many things!) and today I toodled into the shop and confidently handed them my memory stick.

"Oh no, Mrs. Watanabe. You have to give us a print if you want us to make cards."

Fine. I can do that. I go to their machine and upload (upload, download, I don't know which one) my picture into their computers and hand the man at the counter my order printout. They hand me an order form. I fill it out and hand it back to the man at the counter.

"Oh, so sorry to trouble you Mrs. Watanabe. You ordered the wrong size print from the computer. You needed the smaller size."

Fine, fine. Let's do it again. Here you go. Here is the printout for the smaller size print I have now ordered. Here is the order form for a 100 cards.

"So sorry Mrs. Watanabe. But to do this you need to have a frame around your picture."

"Ah-hah! I DO have a frame around my picture so go ahead and order my 100 cards."

"Begging your pardon Mrs. Watanabe but our computer screen shows that your frame is not to the right dimensions. You need 10,000 and 10,000 pixels (well, some number of pixels) and 10,000 and 10,000 (more odd numbers) of pixels of frame. Here are the directions for making your own picture with the correct frame about it."

"Wait... I did this last year and haphazardly put a frame around it. Are you sure it isn't going to work this year?" (Desperation in my voice.)

"Well... of course you could send it in this way but it might come back very lopsided and you might lose some of the picture. With all respect, I think you should try to redo your picture. By the way, the deadline for the discount is tomorrow."

"There isn't any other way to do this?" (my head started hurting at about that point.)

"Oh yes! If you want to bring in your pictures separately we could arrange them for you in a similar layout. Since you have so many pictures (family picture and 6 animal pictures) it would run about $80."

"Forget you! I'm outta here. I'll go back home and rack my brain for computer technology!"

Actually I've come home and called Mrs. Ochiai again and scanned and sent her the specific directions for getting the correct sized frame around my picture.

And on the way home I stopped at the convenience store, bought a chocolate bar, ripped into it and ate the whole thing before I got into the driveway...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

For us in Japan, it is a normal Thursday. Nothing planned in the way of a feast and no turkeys in sight. A couple of days ago Japan celebrated Labor Thanksgiving Day which has different connotations but schools and businesses did get to take the day off. It is no where near the family, feasting day that Thanksgiving is in America.

For many years our family was invited to Marlene's house for Thanksgiving and she always had a turkey ordered from Tokyo. Marlene's family, our family and another family with American connections would gather on the Sunday closest to Thanksgiving Day and have a traditional Thanksgiving feast. I'd bring green beans and a salad and maybe an apple pie, the other family would bring condiments like cranberry sauce, black olives and pickles (the husband always had a business trip to the States around this time of year) and Marlene would roast a turkey, make mashed potatoes and bake a pumpkin pie. We all spoke a combination of Japanese and English and had a big "family" day. Poor Marlene! She has always been stuck with the big job of roasting the turkey because she is the only one of us that has an American sized oven that the turkey can fit into! The rest of us bake in ovens that hold 9 cookies at a time.

Another Thanksgiving I remember before I ever met Marlene, was when a couple foreign families decided to celebrate together and one lady, Helen, ordered a turkey. I think what happened was when she went to roast it she found it wouldn't fit in her oven. Disaster approaching! We called Mrs. Furui because I knew she had an large German oven from her days of living in Germany.

"Mrs. Furui! We are trying to roast a turkey but it won't fit in the oven. Could we use your oven today? Of course please join our Thanksgiving party!"

Mrs. Furui was happy to help us but she had plans for part of the day. She suggested that whoever was roasting the turkey could come over and camp out at her house even if she, herself, wouldn't be home.

Blond Helen went over to Mrs. Furui's and spent the day alone roasting the turkey. No problems until MR. Furui suddenly came home in the middle of the day and found this blond stranger standing in his kitchen! He backed out of there very quickly and pondered whether he'd stumbled into the wrong house! As I recall, thanks to the Furui's, it was a lovely Thanksgiving day with lots of laughter.

As I said, this year Tetsu and I are having a quiet weekend. Marlene of course invited us again, but she has a lot of company this year and Thanksgiving doesn't mean a whole lot to Tetsu anyway. Should I figure out how to bake a pumpkin pie? I think my oven can handle that...

Busy days

A rush, rush day today. I don't like Wednesdays just because I have to have my wits enough together to take materials for three different places and 6 classes and I invariably forget something. I also seem to be on the run and checking the clock all the time. And I finally get home around 6:00. It makes for a long day (for me... For my husband who works until 9:30 at night, he can't understand what I'm griping about.)

Question: Do you think you are too busy or not busy enough or have just the right balance in your days? I think I am too busy. It seems like I don't have time to enjoy chatting with friends, and of course I could always use some extra time to work on quilting projects. I imagine a Tasha Tudor sort of life sitting among animals and flowers and quietly making things. I wonder if and when I have time to spare that I'll melt into boredom and think about the good ol' rushing around days.

My personal opinion is that in Japan at least, everyone is too busy. I have English kids who go to soccer or band practice after school, then get bused to swim school, then come to English and finish up the evening with abacus lessons. It seems that almost every child I come into contact with has some type of lesson every day of the week. Karate, boy scouts, piano, cram school, ballet, etc. etc. I can hardly talk since my English classes seem to be part of the problem but still I feel sorry for kids who have no time to just play or read or something. Maybe kids don't do that anyway anymore. Maybe they all sit in front of their TV and computer games so the parents figure keeping kids occupied is a better way for them to spend their time.

But it is not limited to just kids. I teach an English class at the kindergarten for mothers and there are supposed to be 10 students but for the last month I have had 3 or 4. The reasons? One week the kindergarten offers the mothers kimono dressing lessons, another two or three weeks there is preparation for a tea ceremony party. A few weeks there were doll making classes and puppet show preparations. Sometimes there is birthday lunch day for the kids. Of course there were bazaar preparations and Sports Day preparations. I actually applaud the mothers who tell me they just can't come to English anymore because there are so many other things they have to do. I should say so! At least they are not wearing themselves thin and juggling one extra thing.

I have no idea if Tasha Tudor ever made Apple Crisp but it sounds like something warm and hearty that she would serve her guests. Yesterday I made some for friends and students but Tetsu has been too BUSY to sample the piece I saved for him...

Apple Crisp

4 cups sliced apples
2/3 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oats
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup margarine

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Arrange apples in greased square pan. Mix remaining ingredients; sprinkle over apples.

Bake until topping is golden brown and apples are tender, about 30 minutes. Serve warm and if desired with cream or ice cream.

Christmas cards

I'm trying to make a Christmas card. (In Japan we send out New Year's cards instead of Christmas cards). First I looked around on my computer and decided there isn't any picture software in it. That's okay since I only seem to need it at Christmas and New Years. Then I played around with Word and figured out how to paste pictures to a document in a way that was pleasing. (Family pictures with six animal pictures pasted at the bottom.) Great except I came to the conclusion that the camera shop is not going to want a Word document. They want jpg. documents.

Then I contacted Mary who always has such lovely pictures on her blog and she suggested I download Picasa. I have done that and now I am trying to make a collage. All this is taking a lot of time and trial and error and I really have no idea what I'm doing. I think I've made a collage (I THINK) but I need to put a border around it since I know the camera shop where I order cards every year won't take my picture without a border around it. Don't ask me why. I also can't figure out how to upload my collage into my little memory stick. I am so hopeless with the computer!

Maybe we'll forget Christmas and New Year's cards this year... but it has been a 23 year tradition... They are all there up on the wall... Hmm... a little bit crooked I notice.