Call me Mickey

I thought you might like a laugh today. Here I am coming back from cross walk duty. Remember when I was complaining that this dumb uniform was too big? Well, during this season I've got under that overcoat, a muffler, a uniform jacket, a uniform vest, uniform pants, a white shirt, a knitted vest, a tie, PAJAMAS, leg warmers, socks, boots and two pairs of gloves. (plus the cute hat.) I'm carrying a whistle, a badge, a cell phone and a crosswalk flag. With all these clothes I'm weighted down and ROLLING to the crosswalk! I guess I'm happy the uniform is still too big because it is REALLY cold and I need all the layers I can get. However, the huge gloves do remind me a bit of Mickey Mouse....

*****

1999 and our New Year's card featured two new members to our family. The black and white kitty was Zorro and he showed up in the empty lot next to us one night as a kitten that could hardly walk. I even tracked down the child who had picked him up at the school and left him near my house and I was so furious. I think the neighborhood kids think if there is a stray cat that they should take it to Tanya which is NOT in my plans. But giving the kitty back would just mean that it got thrown out somewhere else so we kept it.

Not more than a month later I spotted Velvet in the forest (along with an empty tuna fish can). Within a few hours Vel had sought warmth and shelter on our porch on top of garden slippers. I ran away from home and Tetsu had to meet me in the middle of the day to plan what to do.

"Okay. Stay away from the house all day and if the kitty is still there tonight then we'll take him in."

You know the rest of the story. Vel is still with us today!

So the Watanabe family each had an animal to love and carry around that year. Shoko looks very uncomfortable!

Some things work out, some things don't!

Yesterday was a big day at the kindergarten because they had their Christmas program. Such a mad house behind the stage but as usual everything went off well. People were relieved to see me there just because one year I came down with the flu and had to cancel out. I will never live that down.

The older class in the kindergarten puts on a "musical" pageant and all the costumes are so cute and the few solo singing parts are just adorable. The cow this year was played by a chubby little boy who is so shy but he really sang his part like a pro! I could envision him someday being an opera singer! (that's pushing it a bit but it brought tears to my eyes since I know he is hesitant even to speak up in class.)

So, one thing successfully completed in the Christmas countdown. A billion more things to go!

Tetsu's vest is not much further along than it was a week ago. maybe less! I made the back. I made the front. WHY doesn't the front fit the back?! I have no idea. I counted correctly, I decreased correctly. I think it must have something to do with more cables on the front than on the back. Tanya, you should stick to a book and not try to design your own pattern. Too late for that now. So I dettink (that's knitted backwards) quite a ways back and am trying to reknit the V-neck. Do you think this will get done before Christmas? Not if I run into more problems.

*****

1998 New Year's card. Takumi was 12 and Leiya 8. Yes, Lemi is sitting on Shoko. I told you they were very good friends!

I don't know if I ever mentioned that Tetsu used to teach judo. Well, he used to be pretty good in judo himself (before I came along) and his dream was to have his kids do judo too. Takumi started judo when he was about three and Leiya looked forward to joining when she entered 1st grade. (Sorry. I am a non-judo person.) Every week I would take my kids to the city gym and meet up with Tetsu and the three of them would do judo with other children and teachers. I usually sat in the bleachers and did hand piecing. Tetsu had big plans for our kids in judo!

BUT parents dreams are often different from their children's. Takumi decided in jr. high that judo was not for him and a year or so later Leiya dropped out too. Poor Tetsu! Nowadays we are all pretty far from the judo scene but this picture was taken at the gym when our family was keen!

Sewing lesson

Yesterday my friends Rumi-san and Mrs. Nakazawa came for their monthly patchwork lesson. They have done hand piecing (at their request) and made a couple of small quilts. They finished their Happy Village quilts and proudly brought those to show me and let me take pictures. Yeah! I love these village quilts. They turn out so nicely! And then.... I MADE them sit down at a sewing machine.

"You can do all the hand piecing you like. It is always nice to have a project by your chair. BUT, you have to TRY machine piecing just so you can decide if it is something you might be able to do. If I'm going to teach you, you HAVE to learn machine piecing."

Gulp. Neither of them really wanted to try it. Roller cutters look scary and difficult to maneuver. Neither of them have touched a sewing machine in 10's of years. But I am a strict teacher and together we bought fabric and prepared it for the cutting table. Beautiful fabric isn't it?!

"Okay, take a deep breath. Hang on to the wide ruler and CUT. Excuse me! Too many "oopses" going on here. You are wasting fabric! Be careful!"

I think after cutting 30 some strips they were getting the hang of it.

I brought down my sewing machine and an old one that I keep for emergencies (neither friend owns a sewing machine right now!) and pretty soon they were zipping away! Yeah! We managed to sew strips together but haven't cut those up yet to sew into blocks. Rumi-san and Mrs. Nakazawa still feel like they are wandering through a mystery land.

"What are we doing with all these strips? How is this going to turn into a quilt block?"

I remember the magic feel of a block suddenly coming together without me really understanding why. I hope my friends will feel the same sense of satisfaction!

Next step.... Next month.

******

1997 and we took our family to a nearby park with water wheels in it. I'm surprised we risked taking Lemi with us! I shudder to think she might have jumped out of my lap and disappeared into some unknown place! But all was well. For awhile I was trying to sew fleece shirts and this was one of my attempts at a mother daughter look. Shoko is still being held down for the picture isn't she?

Apple bunnies

When I first came to Japan I lived in apple country and I was amazed at how easily everyone could peel an apple. I had never been handy in the kitchen but my experience til then with peeling apples had been to slash away at a whole apple with a potato peeler. I hated peeling apples! But I found that Japanese women could cut an apple into 1/4ths and daintily peel each quarter without ever touching the meat of the apple. It seemed that all households had a bowl of apples on the table and a small kitchen knife complete with a cover, ready to peel apples for family and guests. I remember being so proud when I learned how to peel an apple without the end result looking like it had already been gnawed over.

Raw apple pieces decorate cakes and children's platters and lunches. In Japan, mothers do NOT put a whole, unpeeled apple in their children's lunchbox. Instead apples are cut into interesting shapes and are dipped in salt water (which was often a surprise to my tongue) to prevent discoloring when eaten later. The most common cut apple shape is the bunny. It takes a little imagination but this is what this is supposed to be.

Cut an apple into 1/8ths. Remove the core part and seeds. Deeply score the peel from the bottom to the center to make a long V cut. Remove the peeling (in one sweep) up to the tip of the V. Soaking the piece in slightly salted water will make the ears of the bunny "stand up" (some). Voila! Apple bunnies.

The other day Tetsu and I went down the street (I still live in apple country, just in another part of Japan) and bought a few bags of apples. Today I'm making apple sauce. No problem now that apple peeling is a breeze!

*****

1996 and yes, that is us as a Japanese family! In Japan we celebrate 7-5-3 day during November and little girls will get dressed up in kimono when they become 3 or 7. Little boys dress up when they are 5. Traditionally when children often did not live til their adult years, when each milestone was met there was a big celebration and the family visited the shrine to give thanks for the child. Nowadays most families will celebrate by taking pictures, going out to a fancy dinner with family and of course visiting the shrine.

In our case Leiya was 6 (but in Japan it is considered 7. One year in the womb.) and I wanted to dress her up in kimono just so that I could take pictures and show family and friends in America. Let me tell you, this one day was COSTLY! Renting the kimono. Having Leiya's hair and make-up fixed. Taking studio pictures. We visited church rather than the shrine.

Tetsu couldn't understand why I wanted to wear a kimono myself on this day. "You're a foreigner. Why wear a kimono?" But a friend offered to loan me her kimono and even dress me in it and when would I ever have another chance? I'm glad I did because that was the last time I ever wore a kimono...

You can see more about that day here.

And can you see the little sticker at the bottom? That is Lemi the kitty and she was a new addition to our family. She LOVED Shoko the dog and would often nurse! Shoko seemed happy enough being a pacifier and the two were good friends for all the years we had them.

A "simple" lunch

Earlier this week one of my former students called and asked if I could stop by for a few minutes. I suggested that since I had an hour for lunch on Wednesdays that I pick her up and we go to Starbucks for a quick sandwich. Yesterday when I got to her house I found that her mother had made lunch for the three of us.

Look at this lunch!!! True, Mrs. Inoue was once a nutritionist and has experience in planning and making meals. But lunch was amazing! A far cry from Starbucks sandwiches!

"Oh, this is nothing... Most of this stuff is made before hand anyway. It's not difficult to make."

That obviously depends on the person. My poor husband doesn't get a dinner like this from me EVER.

Starting at the front, going around clockwise. Broth soup with tofu and greens. Rice with healthy millet grains. Simmer dried tofu and stuffed deep fried tofu pouches (stuffed with vegetables and ground chicken). Simmered icicle radish with miso-meat sauce. Simmered mushrooms (three or four kinds). Pickled radishes (she had radishes drying in her yard to later be made into pickles). Pickled cauliflower. Sweet and sour green onions. How's that for a "simple" meal?!

Mrs. Inoue has always enjoyed collecting little pieces of special pottery and she shows them all off in her beautiful meals. Lunch was a delight!

*****

We must have taken the 1995 New Year's picture right before the deadline to make cards. The house was filled with Christmas things. I don't see Lammy in the picture so she may have already disappeared into the forest. She wasn't with us for more than a year or so. Shoko the dog had begun to have camera phobia and we were always wrestling with her to stay still for a picture. She HID whenever she saw a camera!

That tiny Christmas tree is all my kids have ever had. My mother had sent it to me when Tetsu and I were first married and it was just the right size for a small apartment. Nowadays we can buy larger artificial Christmas trees but I no longer put up a tree at all anymore. SHOCK! I learned the hard way a couple of years ago that the cats enjoyed knocking the ornaments off of the tree and using anything red, white or green as cat toys. A lot of smashed ornaments! Though Christmas (material Christmas) has been adopted in Japan I've never seen a cut Christmas tree... if Japanese families put up a tree at all (and most don't) they are artificial trees sometimes with the tinsel and plastic balls already attached!

Wild Wednesday

It's Wednesday. Running around like a mad woman! I'm SO sorry that I'm not working in time to go blog visiting when so many of you come each day. Please forgive me. That Google Reader list of blog friends every day tells me that there are more posts to be read but I'm just not getting to it. I WILL! (but definitely not today!)

*****

1994's New Year card! The previous year was another biggie for us because we bought a house out in the countryside of Nikko! We also acquired a cat from some American friends who were returning to the States. We named the cat Lammy (after a Sunday school magazine) and my mother often said we had the perfect home, one son, one daughter, one dog and ONE cat. What more does one need?

The house we had seen two years earlier when we'd been thinking we'd like to settle down. My mother had been visiting and together we went out and looked at this house. I loved the wooden walls and odd floor plan but didn't really want to live out in the boonies. And with NO MONEY, we scrapped the plans to buy a house. My mother noted in her diary that we had seen "Tanya's dream house. Too bad they can't afford it." Two years later Tetsu noticed in the newspaper that the same house was for sale and the price had drastically dropped so out we went again and within a day signed papers! Though I was hesitant about moving out of the friendly neighborhood where our apartment had been, my mother could show me her diary entry and assure me that THIS WAS THE HOUSE for us.

Tetsu was so thrilled at being a home owner that he bought a swing and put it together in our living room where it resided for awhile since we couldn't afford furniture. A couple of months later though our good American friends gave us ALL their furniture (as well as their kitty) when they moved back to the States, so you can see how we had real proof that God provides!

What is kindness?

Yesterday something happened that made me think a bit. I was driving to the next city over when I noticed a person lying on the sidewalk. The other cars on the street weren't stopping but I did. Now, what did I think I could do? I called out to the man (it was a man) as I got out of the car and he mumbled an answer. I asked if he was okay and helped him since he was struggling to sit up. He didn't look hurt and he was talking to me so I helped him stand. He wasn't very steady on his feet so I took him over to a stone wall and helped him sit there while I gathered up the plastic bags that seemed to have fallen out of his jacket pocket. I asked him where he was going and he said to the train station. Well, the train station is on the other side of town and he sure didn't look like he was going to be able to make it on foot. I said I didn't know where there was a bus stop in this area so he'd do best to wave down a taxi. By that time I sort of figured that he might be homeless... he didn't seem drunk. I asked if he had any money and he said no and asked me to take him to the train station. Well, no. I couldn't do that (I couldn't see being late to work and driving around with a stranger.) I left him by the roadside with the equivalent to $10. He asked if I had more spare change but I said no and wished him well and waved goodbye.

I really didn't think he'd get far since he could hardly stand and it was beginning to rain, so I made a stop at a police box along the way and reported where the man was and how I'd come across him. The policeman seemed to think I shouldn't have given him money but after pulling out maps he said he'd drive out and see. That's the end of my story.

Tetsu thinks I should have immediately called an ambulance or the police and not tried to help the man stand. It looked like he was really in need but he could have just been panhandling for money because he asked for more after I'd given him some. Maybe I was just alleviating my own feelings of not wanting to get more involved.

Many years ago Leiya and I came across a man who was lying in the middle of the street and we helped him to the side of the road. He was bleeding though and I flagged down the next car and asked them to call an ambulance. We wrapped the man in a picnic quilt that I keep in back of the car and waited with him until the ambulance came. He wasn't making any sense so I thought he'd hurt his head. When he was transported to the ambulance I asked for my quilt back... For some reason I could be kind enough to help someone in need but not kind enough to lose my quilt! Later the hospital called to say the man had dementia and had wandered away from his home. He hadn't been hit by a car or hit his head etc. I sometimes look at my old quilt (still in the back of the car) and wonder why I couldn't let it go...

*****

1993 and our New Year's card was of us in my mother's swimming pool! This had been taken 6 months earlier when we visited California that summer and it was always a big thrill for the kids to take two weeks of swimming lessons at the local community college and then swim all summer. I think Takumi got a waterproof watch for his birthday a couple weeks earlier which he was very proud of, thus the pose. Leiya, on the other side, was trying to be like big brother. And Shoko, the dog, (who of course didn't go to California) joined the picture by way of sticker applied later.