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I went over to Mrs. Furui's on Monday to do some patchwork but we didn't actually do any patchwork.  We ended up making birds!

Mrs. Furui always has some new project going on... she keeps her eyes open for something that might make the children's ward at the hospital cheery and she found a pom-pom project.  I gather that under Mrs. Furui's instruction, some of the hospital volunteers made loads of these little birds and hung them from a branch mobile.  And that caught on so that one of the leaders of the preschool committee taught another group of volunteers and now the preschool has lots of birds flittering around!  And of course I had to get into the act too.

These are rather simple and use up left over yarn.  Nothing to buy!

The original pattern of the bird was jig-sawed out in wood but as none of us do wood-working Mrs. Furui decided she could do something similar with cardboard.  In this case old gift boxes cardboard...  Nothing fancy.

She made a circle shape and then added a head and a tail and finally cut out a rather smallish circle in the center.  (Too big and the birdie needs more yarn and then sort of gets lost in the pom-pom.)

Next Mrs. Furui brought out her yarn scraps and really, only a yard or two of yarn in each color was needed.  I made my bird blue and double threaded a yarn needle and then went around and around the back part of the bird until the top half was wrapped.

With the breast part of the bird I used white yarn and some decorative threads and double threaded the needle again and wrapped and wrapped.  And finally I added some bits of ribbon around the breast area with some extra yellow yarn...  When all is cut the ribbon will be in the middle of the pom-pom.

With a little snipping to round out the pom-pom, there we have a nice little blue bird.

And yesterday I taught two friends and we made more birds... orange for me this time.

And before I put the yarn away last night I made a purple bird.

The only problem with the birds is that Chip has a pom-pom fetish and can't stop batting at the birds and then whapping them under the sofa...

Crosswalk duty

Monday morning and though I have a pretty free day today I was out early for crosswalk duty this morning.

This job sort of fell into my lap about 5 years ago.  I had made a point of helping the neighborhood children cross the main street for nearly 7 years... with a hand-made Stop sign, and then when the school crosswalk guard retired, someone suggested I take over the paid job as it was just down the street from where I'd been manning the nearer crosswalk.

So every morning I don my uniform and drive down to the school (about three minutes away) and stand out on the corner for 30 minutes.  I walk the block in two directions in order to pick up any trash before the children get there, I sometimes wipe down the guard rails on rainy days.  I nod to drivers and a few of them wave to me.  The school principal comes out to the crosswalk for a minute or two and then heads to the un-manned crosswalk at the other end of the block.  I have gone through three principals already in 5 years (they only stay at a school a year or two.)  Altogether about 100 children come my way every morning.  The school has about 150 students, and they all walk together in groups with an older grade child acting as group leader.  The children are supposed to stay in their groups until they have walked across the school grounds and the leader gives the "all free" announcement. 

When all the groups have arrived, I go with them to the school grounds and close the main gate and then drive home.

And at this point I'm supposed to sit down with the computer and fill out the Traffic Safety Log.

I HATE THIS PART OF THE JOB!!!

In fact, I almost declined the job offer when I found out I would have to write a log to be turned in at the end of each month.  Obviously the reason is that I don't write Japanese so well...  And it was an impossible job when I was trying to write  by hand as everyone else does.  I just couldn't write the complicated characters.  I can however read most of them so I am able to CHOOSE the proper character when I type in Japanese.  It works... sort of.  I probably give the city office a lot of laughs because of my strange Japanese.  That, I consider better than my taking offense at Tetsu's remarks when he has tried to correct my strange Japanese.  So I valiantly carry on daily writing in a log.  

It is not all Japanese language that is the problem either.  Just how much can be said every day about standing at a crosswalk?

"The bamboo has grown tall."

"The children seem more somber than yesterday."

"There were more trucks out today than usual."

Trust me.... I make up a lot of nonsense in my log.

I know I am not the only one who grapples with what to write daily.  One guard says she writes about the mountain scenery, or the number of bicycles that crossed that day.  I have heard that a few of the men crosswalk guards just scribble.

"Everything normal."

I would feel like I was shirking my duties if I resorted to only that phrase as I do like to be conscientious about these things but the point is to prove that the guard has been on duty so "everything normal" is perfectly okay...  And maybe even easier to check through for the poor person at the city hall who has to read these things.  (And throughout the city there are about 50 crosswalk guards!  I being the only foreigner...) 

Here are a couple of iPhone photos of my school block.

 A crosswalk is a crosswalk right?

This group of children walk maybe 30 minutes to get to the school, mostly along this main road but all the children are from farming families so they have to cut through fields to get to the group meeting place.  On the left side there is a small road that the children from the nearest residential area walk along to get to the school.

The four girls who cross the street at the block's other crosswalk come the farthest every morning to the school.  For some reason this day one of the mothers accompanied them and the principal is there in the black suit.  This group also has an older volunteer who walks them to this crosswalk every morning and sees them safely across.  Though I couldn't catch the previous and last few seconds when I photographed them, the girls always raise their hands when they cross the street and when they reach the other side they all bow politely to the cars who have stopped for them.  I can't get any of the children at my crosswalk to be so polite though I have mentioned that it would be nice if they acknowledged the drivers who wait at the stoplight for them.  Too many children maybe...  This group of four has always been very good about walking in a row like ducklings and being model children...

Okay... I've got to stop blogging and write that frustrating Traffic Safety Log entry today.  Let's see...

"A driver stopped today to ask for directions to one of the golf courses.  I wasn't able to articulate well enough to give good directions.  As you can see, I'm not very good with the language."

Rose garden

Tetsu and I went out early yesterday morning (Saturday) and after breakfast at Coco's we headed to the largest nature park in the city for a couple of hours of bicycling and playing with our cameras.

There were rental bicycles available and we pumped our way up and down hills and around boating ponds and got a lot more exercise than we normally do!

The park was having a Rose Festival and in this case it means that the roses are in bloom and the photographers are all out trying to capture the most beautiful image.  Hundreds of varieties of roses but I'm afraid neither Tetsu nor I took much notice of the rose names.

Tetsu was more interested in the young couple sitting in the rose archway with their sun umbrella up.  He said he was embarrassed to walk through the arch and disturb them...  So romantic.

Loads and loads of people around with their big cameras and tripods.  Every so often I would catch a passing shot of Tetsu through my lens...

 ...or vice versa.

Which rose is the most beautiful?

I tended to like the single petaled ones.

And the purple one drew a lot of photographers and we overheard a couple people talking about how a blue rose had never been bred yet.  This is the closest the botanists/gardeners have come.

 Ooh.  The yellow roses were gorgeous!

And the dainty pink.

 That was a fun bicycle stop.

 We continued on to the pond and enjoyed the forest green.

A perfect day for a bicycle ride.

 With lots of rest stops along the way.

And then back home for a nap!
 

Photo overload!

I finished Colin's quilt yesterday!  The day before I sewed on the binding and yesterday morning I hand sewed it down.  And in the afternoon I took the quilt out to my favorite quilt-hanging tree to photograph it.

The light was maybe a bit too bright for photographing but I wanted to show how the green of the quilt blends in with the green of the spring scenery.  All the greens of the quilt reflected in the greens of the world!

Actually it was a bit difficult to get to my quilt-hanging tree...  Just a few days earlier and it would have been easier to step through the brush.  Of course a few days later and I wouldn't have made it to the tree at all.  As it was, I was worried about disturbing any snakes that might think the underbrush around the tree to be a good napping place but I guess they were elsewhere or maybe they fled as they heard me approaching.

In March, Marcy and I had chosen the greens from M and L's for the quilt and Colin chose the color and the pattern.  This is the Scrappy Mountain Majesties pattern from Bonnie Hunter's website.  I have made the same quilt in blue before.

The quilting was free-hand on my domestic machine and I wasn't very exact about anything.  The lines overlapped, the spine was wobbly.  I tried not to make this too feminine and thus didn't go with traditional feathers.  Still...  It is rather delicate...

The spine of the border was chalked in and then I quilted around not making much attempt to trace over the lines...  Actually I don't much like how the spines of intensively quilted feathers stand out so much but I whirled through this trying not to do too much back track quilting.

The borders are the easiest part.

Is this a Jack in the Pulpit flower?  It matched the quilt.

A quick photo of the back.  Marcy chose a solid green backing which makes mistakes more prominent, and there WERE mistakes.  I doubt I've ever made a completely wrinkle free quilt.  Somehow as I quilt along some backing fabric always gets a wrinkle while being heavily pushed and pulled.  I think that problem could be helped by spray basting a quilt heavily but I didn't think of that again this time and hand basted the whole quilt before quilting.

Out in the fields. 

More swirls in the white areas.  I went in one direction and then went the other direction in the alternating white spaces.

I wonder what the farmers thought I was doing spreading out my quilt in their fields and by their orchards. 

"Is this lady planning to take a nap out here?  Have a picnic lunch?"

This morning I contacted Marcy and Colin and sent them a collage of the finished quilt.  Now to figure out how to get the quilt to them!

Sweet Potato cakes!

Takumi sent me a Mother's Day gift!  He is really good about sending us things...  I should have told him he doesn't have to make this a habit...  I love just hearing from him every so often.

The package was delivered yesterday and the delivery man stressed that I needed to put it in the refrigerator or freezer.  So I knew it was food.

And then when I finally took it out of the box there was this beautifully fabric wrapped parcel.  This is the traditional way of wrapping packages in Japan.  Before the time of plastic and paper bags.  This is called a Furoshiki, and it used to be that everyone carried their things around in different sized Furuoshiki.  Of course there are silk ones and beautifully decorated ones and then simple ones of one color that will go with everything.  When a person would deliver a gift in person, she might unwrap the Furoshiki when she was presenting the gift and then just present the parcel, taking her Furoshiki again home with her.  The ultimate recycling item!

Anyway, back to my package from Takumi.  Unwrapping the Furoshiki there was a beautiful woven basket inside!  Hmmm.  I am going to have to think of a good way to keep using this lovely large basket!

And inside the basket was an assortment of Japanese sweets.  SWEET POTATO sweets!  Takumi knows how much I love sweet potatoes (I was eating one a day while on that Whole 30 diet) and he found a Japanese sweet shop that specializes in sweet potato sweets.  Who would have thought that there could be so many different kinds of sweets made from sweet potatoes!

There are roll cakes and gelatin bars, there are puddings and baked sponge cakes, and even traditional hand formed sweet bean and potato cakes! 

Tetsu and I will portion the cakes out one type at a time and we will still be eating sweet potato desserts for a week! 

Takumi said he remembered how I liked sweet potatoes and when he found this assortment on the Internet he thought it very Japanese and unlike anything he'd find in the States.  I think he'd like to sample a few himself!  I have promised to let Takumi know which ones we liked best.
 

Eating out

Let's see...  What is going on around here?  Not too much...

I think that compared to many Japanese couples, Tetsu and I eat out more than the average.  Tetsu knows that I don't much like cooking and I'm not very good at it nor have much imagination.  I tend to make the same dishes over and over again.  We have been trying to shift away from so much restaurant eating (it won't be long until we are living off of Social Security) but still we do "splurge" way too often for it to be called a splurge.  And I don't hesitate at all to go out with my friends for a nice lunch when we get the hankering!

Though Tetsu especially likes to go to Denny's or Coco's or someplace for breakfast on the occasional Saturday morning, last weekend we took our granola and fruit out onto the porch for breakfast.  Let's see...  we had a couple of hard boiled eggs there, some matcha cake and konyaku jellies too.  And coffee.

On the day I went out buying flowers with my neighbor she and I ate at a food court and I ordered iced-tea and kimchee Bibinba which is a Korean dish served in a red hot stone bowl.  The rice and vegetables etc are mixed up in the bowl and they heat as they are eaten.

On another day, I went with a friend to an Indonesian restaurant for lunch.  This is my absolute favorite restaurant!  Cold tofu and cucumber salad, a hard boiled egg in chili sauce, fried chicken, cold bean sprouts, and grilled fish.  It is also usually served with rice but the owners know I'd prefer their pickles instead...

Sorry.  This isn't a very good picture but I went to a local hamburger place by myself one afternoon and ordered a Rice Burger!  There is barbecued meat in a blanket of lettuce and it is all sandwiched between two rice patties!  If you are trying to avoid gluten I guess it is a good choice and probably only found in an Asian hamburger joint!  (Ate that with french fries though...)

And for no other reason than Tetsu absolutely loves this restaurant and he didn't get much of a holiday this Golden Week, we went for pork cutlets at a somewhat fancy restaurant in the town.  My cutlet (pictured) is stuffed with burdock leaves and pickled plums and served with a citrus vinegar sauce.  A lot of shredded cabbage there, miso soup with a couple of shrimp floating around in it... heads and all, and more pickles.  Tetsu had a similar pork cutlet simmered in a sweet soysauce and egg dish called Katsudon.  I think if Tetsu had to choose a "last supper" he would choose Katsudon.  Not particularly healthy and I often have to suggest he eat something a bit less heavy... but on this night he enjoyed his Katsudon immensely.

We are eating well recently!  Now I need to go and swim some laps today!

A Mother's Day gift

For Mother's Day, Tetsu and I visited his mother and then went out and at her request bought her a new microwave.

Tetsu's mother loves gadgets.  She has quite a few up to date appliances and when she hears of something new and different she longs for it.  Of course she is pretty thrifty so she always convinces herself that she doesn't need it but we tend to go out and buy things for her (she will rarely leave her apartment).  Hey! if a 91 year old Grandma still wants something then she should have it!  I'm amazed that she still desires new things!  My own mother is past the wanting or needing anything new...  Her Mother's Day gifts boil down to new pajamas.

Not all of what Tetsu's mother might think is good is really necessary nor is she going to make the use of it that she thinks she might.  Take the microwave.  Her microwave was old and somehow she'd managed to break the door handle.  She really did need a new microwave.

"I've heard that the microwaves these days can toast bread too.  Maybe I'd like that type."

Tetsu's mother has a fairly new toaster.  But she wanted a microwave/toaster because she isn't able to walk across the kitchen from one appliance to another.  If the two appliances were in one package, think how much easier making toast and heating leftovers at the same place might be!  (Tetsu's mother's kitchen is tiny!  But it is true she finds it very hard to move around in it and likes things to be within reach of her one chair.)

I however didn't think a microwave/toaster would be a very good idea.

"Tetsu, what she means is that she wants a microwave that can bake too and in a pinch can toast bread.  That's what OUR microwave can do but do you know how many times I've ever toasted bread?  Never.  The old fashioned toaster does a much better job of toasting bread.  And besides, then she would have to understand that when baking or toasting she's going to have to use the grill sheet and turn the settings to oven and then when she wants to go back to using the microwave then she's going to have to remove the grill sheet or else she might start a fire.  With a microwave you can't use any metal you know."

"You can't?  I never knew that.  Maybe that's why I set something to smoking when I used the microwave this March when you were in the States."

My husband is not going to be able to explain the workings of a microwave/oven to his mother...

My own microwave/oven has a confusing panel of setting options...  We bought ours because I do bake sometimes and our kitchen is really too small for a microwave, an oven AND a toaster...  (And no place to hide any of these appliances in cupboards.  They sit out on a shelf.)  The oven part I have learned (with a lot of practice) to control.  I NEVER use the myriad of other settings available.  Goodness gracious!  There are 50 setting options!  When am I ever going to try and cook Soup Pasta in my microwave?  Or how about Filet Cutlet?  Or Chinese Custard?  And even if I wanted to I'd still have to go get out the instruction booklet and fill the correct containers (there is a steamer) and use the right grill sheet or turn table or whatever...  No, no, leave me with the reheating element and the occasional baking setting.

We did give toasting bread a try on OUR microwave.  I got out the instruction book.  I put the settings to high grill.  I put in the grill sheet on the top most level.  We set our toast on the grill and turned the appliance on FOR NINE MINUTES!  And then turned the toast over and toasted the other side another three minutes.  And for all that the toast wasn't much brown!  Even Tetsu agreed that this was a very inefficient way to toast bread.

At the electronics store we chose the simplest microwave we could find.  No more than three buttons, one for reheating, one for heating milk and one for defrosting.  I doubt Tetsu's mother will ever defrost anything.  And we also rearranged her kitchen a bit so that the old fashioned toaster now sits ATOP of the new microwave...  Thus Tetsu's mother can reach over and use both appliances with a reach from her chair.

Happy Mother's Day!