Just a little thing

The other day I sent some packages off at the post office.  The post office girls know me as I go in quite a lot to send letters or packages and do my banking (yes!  banking at the post office!)  A couple of years ago they got to know me VERY well when I got involved with sending off used obis to people all over the world who contributed to the Japanese Red Cross.  Every couple of days I'd go in with a new wrapped up obi and the girls would weigh the package and I would pay the postage.

"Could you please put stamps on that for me?  I'd rather have stamps than the little label thingy."

Stamps (I suppose in any country) are so beautiful and interesting.  Sometimes Japanese stamps sheets will have illustrations extending off the individual stamps and onto the sheet and it seems a shame to remove only the stamps.  Often my packages would have the whole sheet on the back of my package just so the pretty effect wasn't lost.  The girls got very good at putting as many different stamps on my packages as possible!

Anyway...  last week I sent off some packages and asked for stamps as usual.  And I did my banking at the next window and forgot something so I had to make a trip home.  I came back an hour later and as I passed the post office window I recalled that I hadn't put my return address on one of the packages.

"Is that package I mailed still here?  I think it doesn't have a return address."

The package was in the back room and the girl brought it out for me.

"I know you like the pretty stamps and sheets so I decorated your package.  I hope that was alright."

The post office girl had taken the time to cut out a kimono figure from the disposable part of another stamp sheet and had arranged it artistically on the front of the package.  I wish I'd thought to take a picture but I was busy assuring the girl that I just LOVED the little touch she had added.  The girl was so happy that she cut out another kimono figure for me to use another time.

The post office girl didn't have to add that extra touch and it was just by chance that I asked to have my package back to add the return address. Though she didn't expect me to ever know that she'd done an extra service, she took the time to make my package recipient happy.

Just a little thing...

A day in Tokyo

Yesterday Tetsu and I did a "first" and went to Tokyo on a VIP outing!

Uh-hum.  Not that we are VIP... but Tetsu's boss had VIP tickets to the musical, Les Miserables, and he wasn't going to be able to use them so he passed them along to Tetsu and said,

"Take your wife!"

We've been looking forward to this for months.  (I've been looking forward to it...  Tetsu thinks it a lot of rig-a-ma-role.)

Musical tickets included Bullet Train tickets to Tokyo so off we went early in the morning, parked our car at the station and rode the Bullet Train into the metropolitan.  A pretty full train so we didn't sit together...

We arrived at the renovated Tokyo Station and walked to the Imperial Theater.

We were then escorted (along with a couple hundred other "VIP") to a very fancy Japanese style restaurant where we enjoyed a wonderful boxed lunch.  Take a look at that...  Let's see... center back was grilled fish, chicken, pickled squid, a shellfish in shell and a pretty carved lotus root.  To the right of that were some simmered vegetables... how do you like that carved pumpkin morsel there.  Coming front right were raw fish and pickles.  Left front was potato salad, a grilled scallop, simmered konyaku potato and a few pieces of tempura.  And left back was fruit and a slice of cheesecake.  Of course rice and miso soup were also served.  The other interesting thing about this lunch box was that all the containers there are plastic.  They look like Japanese pottery pieces of different sizes and they have painted decorations on them but they are all disposable. 

The musical was wonderful but of course no photos allowed.  It was the first time for Tetsu and me to see a musical!  All in Japanese but absolutely wonderful.  I should have read Victor Hugo's book first though... I didn't really know the story.

As a parting gift, we each received a wooden box of cookies with an enclosed letter about how extremely embarrassed the travel company was at their poor efforts of being hospitable.  Hah!  I have never been so royally treated!

Tetsu and I had a bit of time before we headed back home so we checked out the buildings near the Tokyo Station.

We stopped in at a new shopping site that was interesting though absolutely everything is so extremely costly.  Not my type of shopping at all.

"How can people in Tokyo afford to buy anything?  Just pretty trinkets at an exorbitant price!"

Tetsu pointed out that probably most of the people at the shopping site were tourists like us come too oogle and not Tokyo residents at all.  It was fun to browse though.

We arrived home in the evening to enjoy our cookies.  I think I'll use one of the boxes as a new sewing box.

Nature classes with Y-kun

So what's going on recently...

Y-kun?  Y-kun is insulted that I blur out the pictures of him on my blog... So yesterday I asked his grandmother if I could post his pictures here and she happily told me to go ahead.

Last week Y-kun arrived with this "object".  He made it himself out of a section of bamboo he found on the ground and two sprouts of a maple tree, also found somewhere in the forest.  And he topped it off with moss from the forest too.  Now I think that is very innovative!  A work of art right there!  (Unfortunately the "object" did not survive the week as my cats ate the maple tree sprouts.)

When I praised Y-kun, he made a bee-line for the door and wanted to go gathering MORE sprouts to plant in my garden.  As he had come an hour early for English we headed out to the fields.

So here is an un-blurred picture of Y-kun.  We played around with my camera and took pictures of each other.

Me being photographed by Y-kun.  It was getting pretty dark by this time and he didn't seem interested in my instructions to NOT shoot against the light.

Let's see.  Y-kun showed me buckwheat sprouts and pointed out edible leaves.  Along the roadside Y-kun pulled wild onions for Tetsu to have with that night's dinner (Hmmm.  The onions are growing about where Choco pees every morning.)  And he also dug up an acorn sprout from the forest.  We carried it home in the shovel and Y-kun planted it in my yard.

Yesterday Y-kun arrived with vegetables and...

"What is this?"

"It's a rice plant!  You can grow rice in your house!"

He has got a flooded rice field right there in the plastic bottle.

"Y-kun...  the cats will just eat it."  (or knock it over... I imagined all that mud on my table and floor.)

"Let's put it in the bathroom.  The cats can't knock it over if the door is closed."

So now I'm growing a stalk of rice in my bathroom...

LEIYA!!!

A big milestone has been reached!  Leiya has graduated from college!!!!

You've all read the posts I've written before about how Leiya went to the States at 15, how she lived with a host family, how she struggled through American high school, how she gathered scholarships to attend an American college... and now after 5 years SHE HAS GRADUATED!!!!

I wonder if she knows how proud we are of her.  Tetsu and I are not great at expressing our gaiety and pride.  A simple..."That's great.  Good job!"  but we are happy and relieved and proud as all get out.   Just thinking about Leiya makes us smile.

For Mother's Day Leiya sent me a picture from one of our old albums.

"I'm all grown up now!"

She must have been about two when I took the picture and all dressed up in an old skirt and scarf of mine.  Quite a little dumpling at that age!

And now look at her!  That's quite a young lady there!

Well, Leiya's family didn't get to her graduation but her friends attended and they have been sending me pictures and the graduation program (Thank you Julie!) and Leiya has forwarded me Facebook pictures.

Excuse me if I boast.  My beautiful daughter with the sparkling smile.

Go out into the world and change it for the better Leiya!!

Neighborhood wisteria

Tetsu and I get out early on weekends and walk Choco a bit farther than usual.  Wherever we go Tetsu asks me

"Aren't you going to take a picture of this?"

which results in an awful lot of pictures.  He needs to get his own camera!

So these are some pictures of what we've seen lately...

There is a temple within walking distance which is hardly visited by anyone EXCEPT for one week in May when the wisteria blooms.  It seems to have a very old wisteria vine that stretches over a good part of the temple grounds.  Tetsu and I (and Choco) walked over before the rest of the world was awake and tried to capture the delicate blossoms digitally.  We couldn't capture the wisteria fragrance!

Bees were buzzing around the blossoms.

The trunk of the vine is huge and there is an elaborate support system for the elderly branches.

 From the temple porch.

Actually there are wild wisteria all around us which are just as beautiful but a little higher up in the trees and hard to photo.  Such a lovely time of year!

...recovery...

I have a friend who is going into the hospital today.  She may or may not have surgery.  She may be in there awhile or she may come home in a few days.  Whichever way, a jolt has been given to her daily life.

So... as my friend gets ready to go to the hospital I send her e-mails, and help her make lists of things she might need, and pray for her and with her.

My friend knows the Bible but thinking that she might not be able to pull up a comforting Bible verse in the jumble of thoughts and concerns she has right now I sent one to her in an e-mail.  I'm not sure I can pull up a comforting Bible verse on the run either but this is the verse I have in my schedule book this week.

"Then your light will break out like the dawn,

And your recovery will speedily spring forth;

And your righteousness will go before you;

The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard."

Isaiah 58:8  

 

No~ra

A couple of weeks ago Tetsu and I were driving down a road when I spotted an older man pulling a luggage caddy.  As we passed him I noticed that he wasn't carrying luggage... he was carrying...

"Was that a cat?"

"What?"

"Did you see that?  There was a man pulling a cat around on his luggage caddy."

"Naw... I didn't notice anything.  You must be mistaken.  You only see things like that on TV."

This weekend I was driving down the same road and just as I pulled into a bakery to buy some bread I noticed the man and his luggage caddy again.  I screeched to a halt, grabbed my camera and accosted the poor man by the edge of the road.  I have to admit he did seem a bit alarmed when I came barreling at him throwing out questions about his cat.

"You have a cat there!  On your luggage caddy!  Is it an old cat?  A sick cat?  Do you often take your cat for a walk this way?"

When the man realized I wasn't about to bowl him nor his cat over he explained a little about his cat.

This is No~ra-chan.  (Nora means a stray).  She (he) is a fairly youngish cat.  She is not lame nor ill. The cat just likes going for a ride on the caddy.  The man said that if he took No~ra from the caddy she would be off like lightning but as long as she is sitting on the caddy she is frozen like a statue.  She doesn't need to be and isn't tied to the caddy (though she has a leash on that just rests there).  That alarmed me a bit.  I might have scared the poor cat and it could have taken off across the road...  I'll have to remember to be more temperate when I approach cats being pulled on luggage caddies. 

No~ra and her owner allowed me to take pictures.  And afterwards I waved good-bye and went in to buy my bread.

"Did you see that cat out there on the luggage caddy?"

"Oh yes, that man pulls his cat along every day.  I've always been curious but never been brave enough to ask him about it."

Now see there!  You have to be brave and find out about things!  I was very pleased to be able to show Tetsu my pictures of No~ra and assure him that I wasn't imagining things.