THIS fabulousness

Here's my new summer living room with the shiny new things finally installed! The piano (below) is on the left, and the computer (close-up below as well) is in the corner, a little dark. Sofa on the left and media centre on the right with the dysfunctional tape and MD players. Usually the shoji are at the other end of the window to keep the computer corner cool. The wicker chair sits in the cross breeze between the front and back doors, plus with fans from the other two directions it's the coolest spot in the house - I thought until today when I figured out the genkan was. I am seriously considering moving my wicker chair out there for my afternoon tea! What a bloody granny.

From the other direction.... a bit more cluttered, with Erica's tent and Amy and Lena's desks. But better than it is right now - but it's still not bad enough yet to take a true 'after' shot so you'll have to wait for that. I will happen! 

Gratuitous cute shot. Erica on 'Grandma's' wicker chair. It rocks! I mean, literally, not as in 'it's cool'. Though it is cool, if you mean temperature-wise.

From fabulous to frazzled, with a fire at the end

Today was supposed to be fabulous, with the piano and new computer arriving. I was going to get a blog written and my work done first thing in the morning, I'd be all good and do it before I opened the box even if it came early, and then I'd have the rest of the day to set it up, and I'd spend the afternoon catching up on Olympic videos online...

Instead I ended up frazzled and frustrated by anything electronic or technical, despite the new blender (aka mikusa in Japan) arriving also, meaning I actually had three new toys today! First, neither of my two printers cooperated with me in getting the paper I was proofreading printed - one's out of ink, the other seems to have a dud USB cord. So while I was fiddling with that, I turned the computer a bit to see the USB port and CLUNK the internet cord got pulled too and knocked off the smoke detector onto my head. Picking up the pieces, I noticed the battery was gone, and commented to Kanji, who just said Hmm. Suffice it to say that him getting annoyed that I got pissed off that all he had to say to me after my techno failure+headouch+battery emergency was Hmm, actually upset me more than him only saying Hmm.

So I didn't get my work done until after lunch, but still the technology wouldn't cooperate with me! Word on my old dungary laptop is in Japanese, and while I found where the 'track changes' function was, it just wouldn't work!! So I tried other computer, where Word is in English, but I had to transfer the files manually because it doesn't connect to the internet. Then the USB stick wouldn't work. I finally got it over there on a flippin CD, and have been WALKING between computers with a CD in my hand to get my work done!

Finally time to open the shiny fabulous new iMac! Very big, very pretty, and of course I'm very happy with it, but.... I figured my chances of getting Wifi connected today were minimal, and only unboxed the router so I could tick the 'Well I tried' box. I did try plugging the modem cord into the Mac too, but that didn't work either. I managed to hack my neighbor's Wifi, but the connection is too slow, then I got an error message - you can't watch this in your country. Bastards. I am so SICK of things just NOT WORKING!!! GRRRR!!

And then the goddam piano saga... I made a big mistake last night when I bought it, and okayed a delivery time of 4-7 - just the exact hours I would be out at the kids' campfire event at their camp. So I turned up at the store at 4pm in the van, thinking I might pick it up if it hadn't already gone.. I was getting really agitated because I needed to be at the campfire, but they kept saying 'chotto matte kudasai'. Wait while I see where it is, wait while I get it... wait while I call someone to see if it can be delivered tonight or in the morning (had to press for that one, instead vague statements about them maybe being busy). Wait while I get someone to help you get it in the van. I shouldn't complain, they did a good job of securing it in the van, it's still there now, waiting until Kanji gets home for us to get it inside. As long as it's all set up by the time the girls get home tomorrow!

But wait, there's more! The small tape deck/radio I bought does not work. And I lost the receipt during clean up for the party. And I tried the MD player on our stereo and that doesn't work either! So no books on tape and no books on MD either. I'm almost afraid to use the new blender! What more can go wrong?

Oh... yeah, the wind blew a photo off the windowsill in the kitchen and smashed the glass and I got a bit in my foot. Okay my house hates me.

And the fire at the end? The campfire, which was great. They fed us parents this year, and we sat around and watched their performances. Each team had a nation theme. The girls totally won!!! The three female teachers had NZ, South Africa and the UK. They did a haka, Shakira's world cup song and the Spice Girls. Jacob was also amazing with a self-written song about Australia. Ken and Kevin, come on!!! Step up!

Two very different days... and Villa Maria

I think what I like about the holidays the sense of freedom from normal schedules, and thus the freedom to do what we want, and how as a result, the days are so unpredictably different.

Thursday I did absolutely nothing all day! Well, apart from a mad rush to Baachan's at 8:30 to pick up Amy for her school session, and waiting around for the tatami man to come and take away the burnt mat, then bring the new one back, and shopping for butter.. And a brief trip to Baachan's again at 3pm, to find the kids all gone to eat ice cream with their auntie and I was not going to complain about that. Oh and karate at 6:10.

But honestly, I did nothing nothing nothing in between, unless you count napping, crunching ice, reading magazines, and finding ways to eat Marmite as a thing. It's wonderful having a day like that. It's not that I didn't have anything to do - laundry to wash and dry and fold, yukatas to iron, Christmas decorations to de-mold, recipes to sort, cupboards to tidy, my wife to kill and Guilder to frame for it - I'm swamped!

But I ignored it all, I didn't even turn on the computer to check email. Utter Bliss.

Friday was AFWJ Journal mailing day. The boxes arrived Thursday night - over 400 copies in four large and one smaller box sat in my genkan overnight. From late morning (after spending the first part of the day helping Amy and Lena to get ready for camp, and bringing them there, and then coming home to find Amy's hat and bringing it back to her) I spend most of the day putting them into envelopes, and sealing them with selotape. Some also had extra newsletters to insert, and some people had to get an extra payment sheet and some had to get two copies. Two trips to the post office to send the overseas copies, then to Kanji's shop to get the wagon to bring the boxes to the courier's, then stickering 383 envelopes and swiping each one separately then finally leaving the shop feeling very, very light indeed at 5:30!

My other goal for the day was to visit all five branches of YokoYama in town in a search for Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc wine from New Zealand. When Katy mentioned that her local liquor store in the wop wops had it, I thought it was just a wonderful fluke. I often check out the shelves at the stores to check for NZ wine, but almost never find it. Then when I asked her where the store was, she said it was YokoYama. NOT just a small local shop as I had assumed, but a chain! A chain that has FIVE shops in and around Nakatsu, including one ON MY BLOCK!

I was quite prepared to take an hour visiting all five (some are a bit far, on the way to Usa), but I found it at my local!!! The one I had least expected to have it, as it only has a tiny tiny wine section. Woo-hoo!That means all five have it. I did not visit them all after finding the stash at my local, I might as well exhaust this supply first! It's a little more expensive that the Satellite Sav Kristin can get at her local supermarket (1280 compared to 800), but it's still a reasonable price.

Being on a shopping high, I decided to go look for a piano.. After checking Yamada and Best Denki, I went back to where I had started two weeks ago, and bought the shopworn, discounted, older model from Deo Deo. It was only 50,000 and in perfect condition. It's a standing one though, with a stool, so we will have to make room for it, but seeing how sad she was about losing her beloved piano, I think she deserves something a little nicer.

Another Busy Day, yeah we've heard that before...

Summer holidays, you know how it is!

Thursday 19th July, summer hols begin with a BANG - lightning strikes the house, taking out the TV, DVD players, piano and computer. An interesting summer on the cards...

Friday 20th July, I work as usual, but the holidays begin for real for the kids. They drag home a tonne of homework, and I am pleased that they are old enough now that I don't even have to look at it, let alone decipher it and direct it. They do it themselves!

Saturday 21st July, a frustrating day spent trying to get back online after the NTT man came with a new modem the day before - and utterly failing, with either of the functioning computers! Hello wine bottle, my friend.

Sunday, 22nd July, I have no idea what I did this day, judging by the wine consumption the night before, probably not very much!

Monday, 23rd July, Amy's modeling debut (post to come).

Tuesday, 24th July, work again, a funny divination class, my new occupation?

Wednesday, 25th July, modeling again!!! This time back at Mr. Wada's studio.

Thursday, 26th July, karate and Giongurumas out already! Let the fun begin!

Friday, 27th July, BEACH - we went snorkeling at Nagasakibana in Kakaji-machi

Saturday, 28th July, Kristin and co. over for the night, lots of yukatas, ice cream, pool, Gion, wine and conversation

Sunday, 29th July, GION party, a quiet one this year!

Monday, 30th July, back at Wada's for more photos

Tuesday, 31st July, pool day! We went to Kampo no Sato.

So, THAT was July!

Lightning Strikes

I have the best excuse for my absence, our house was hit by lightning!

And it's been such a busy, eventful week away, with floods, volunteering, mud, a reggae festival, more mud, lightning, modeling and divination! I have so much to catch up on!

It happened on the 19th: I had just picked up Erica from Aiko kindy, and taken her home. Normally I would take her directly to Keio kindy to catch the afternoon session, but this day I wanted to keep her home so she could take a nap, so she would be happy and energetic enough to do both her swimming and karate lesson in the evening.

When the storm started, the first thing I did was rush around closing all the windows. We've had nearly daily storms in the last few weeks, thunder and lightning has become almost routine. And one thing I know is that the rain is very heavy and strong, and will wet everything inside, eaves or not, so the first line of duty is rushing around getting all the windows closed (in this heat they are, of course, all open). Next I fielded a telephone call from Kanji telling me to close all the windows!

During the previous Saturday's monster storm, when I swore I saw a bolt of lightning hit something in the graveyard next to our house, I had turned off all the electricity. This time I didn't think of it, the daily storms were making me a bit blase perhaps. Our plugs and cords are set up for easy removal, more for power saving and fire safety - for example, the computer, screen and printer were plugged into a power adapter separate from the phone, modem and Wifi station, so those things would not be turned off even if I unplugged everything else. Behind the TV, the stereo and phone shared one cord, the TV and other things shared another. Still, I should have actually unplugged them all, because we lost so much!

So I had gone to finish my lunch (Erica had eaten earlier at kindy) and Erica was also, by a HUGE stroke of good luck, in the kitchen; she was getting ice out of the freezer to munch on at the time. We were listening to the storm, as you do, cringing a little at the loud sound.

No words can describe the shock of seeing lightning in your own house. I saw the flash in the living room from my seat in the kitchen. I instantly knew what it was - disbelief settled in later on, but at the time I had no doubt about what it was. Erica screamed before me. Later she told her story - Mummy's face went red. She didn't see the flash, but she saw my face lit up by it! I screamed too, and of course went to her first, to pick her up and do my best to comfort and calm her, while also trying to think of what I had to do.

Holding her, with her body plastered to mine, hiding her face and motionless, I crept gingerly into the living room. I could see all the power was off, and I could see smoke hanging in the air and could smell it. I think some of that was from my fried egg from lunch... but it was enough to put me on alert at the time. I went over to get my iphone, which was in the middle of a reset, and I hadn't completed the sign-in information. There I was, kid clinging to be in abject terror, diligently pressing 'next' and answering dumb questions about networks, while the storm continued to thunder around us, frightening us more with every rumble. I gave up in disgust, threw it on the sofa and decided we would just have to go round to Kanji's shop in the car.

Another HUGE clap came when we were in the genkan, making Erica AND me scream again, but I had to put her down because I realized I had to check upstairs to make sure there weren't any fires. I didn't relish having to wield a fire extinguisher while the storm continued with Erica down by the door crying and screaming, but if I had to do it, I would!

There was nothing though, so we were safe to escape, and I really wanted to get out of there! It just felt unsafe, like the whole house was electrified or something. The rain was coming down in sheets and we both got soaked on the way to the car. I took off down the drive, only remembering to belt her in when I thought, god now wouldn't it be Murphy's law if we got hit by a car today, lightning or no, you can't risk her riding in the front seat with no belt on. I checked the house again from the outside as I drove away, no signs of smoke anywhere.

We arrived at the shop to find Kanji was not there! M-chan offered to call him for us, which he did, and I stepped inside to talk to him, telling him what had happened. This was odd. People who live with two languages like me know what it's like, how you have to practice what you want to say sometimes, or at least give it some consideration how to say things, before a meeting or shopping for something and things like that. You just do it automatically after a while. I realized I had no idea how to say 'lightning struck the house' in Japanese, I know enough about the language to know you can't just swap verbs and use the equivalent of 'strike' in Japanese - it's 'sutoraiku' when referring to baseball, or'tataku', which back-translates at 'hit'. Both of which I suspected were wrong; in the end I settled on 'keru' or ''kick', don't know why. But not only did Kanji understand me (and repeat back, just naturally, the proper verb choice, which was 'ochiru' or 'fall') but M-chan and T-chan, who were in the office understood what I was talking about too - they kept saying 'maji? maji?' ('really?).

I arranged to meet Kanji back at the house. I left Erica in the car at first, still kind of scared of the house. We went in, and I checked first for fires again. I asked Kanji to call the power company, thinking they'd send someone to check the damage. Do you do anything else? I brought Erica inside, and assured her it was safe now. We checked the power and it turned back on, then we went around checking the appliances and electronics. Sad, sad news:

In our initial assessment, we found we lost 2 computers, 3 DVD players, the TV, modem and phone. I was still high on adrenaline from the shock, and just kind of accepted all of this. I expected the power company to call round, but they didn't, once we told them the power was on again. In retrospect, I wish I had called the fire brigade just to check everything, just to have some authority tell me everything was okay, because it was very unnerving being the house, not knowing what was broken and what wasn't, and still worried about wiring in the walls catching fire.

I was so buzzed, there was nothing I could do but clean. I removed each electrical item, unplugged it, and plugged it in again to check at a plug I had determined was functional.. I found that one computer and one DVD player were okay, but that the electric piano was gone. And this is when I lost it. I just cried! I kept thinking of how Amy would feel knowing her beloved piano was gone. I was trying not to cry, but Erica saw me and called Kanji!

Since such a catastrophe had occured, I felt I had to cancel the rest of the day. But then, we would not be doing anything else except just sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves, so I decided to go on with the swimming and karate lessons. I picked the big girls up from school as usual, and gave them the bad news. It wasn't until Amy got home and saw her piano that she got upset - she actually lay down beside it and gave it a hug! She said that we had to get exactly the same one to replace it, and put on that scratch and that black marker streak, and make sure we slotted a coin in somehow, like Erica did when she was a baby, so that the piano would rattle when you shook it, and a certain button would only work if you picked up the piano and rattled the coin back to the other end of the piano...

We promised we would not throw out the piano, we would keep it, for now, in the shed, until she was ready to part with it.

Meanwhile I had to contend with the loss of much of my data (I had all my photos and most of my documents on an external hard drive) and Kanji had to face the loss of all his stored TV shows and movies, as well as the brand new digital tuner/DVD/HD recorder he had bought only six months ago.

At first we were fairly cheerful - we'd claim insurance, and end up with a whole room full of new toys, right? Wrong. We were only covered for EXTERNAL damage in the event of a lightning strike. Bloody cheeky insurance company. They know fully darn well that an antenna and a couple of roof tiles isn't going to cost them much, but a roomful of electronics will! And who's going to check the fine print of their lightning strike coverage, or change their plan because of it?

We hadn't started using the aircon yet, so we only found out a few days later that they weren't working anymore either. Kanji is still working on the insurance, I have to make a claim using AFWJ's insurance, because the power adaptor for the Journal computer got zapped as well. MUCH paper work to do, while in the meantime, we get to win all points in the Setsuden (power saving) game! Amy entered us in the contest. How can you not win when all your stuff is dead?

Biting Critters

I'm itching and scratching and it won't stop!

And I'm sitting here with stinging palms from trying to catch a THING which may or may not be a gnat, the latest icky bug creature I have to be horrified about, after what happened to Vicky today.

It's most probably mosquitoes, our annual nemesis and scourge of summer. For two nights this week, we had one in our bedroom. You hear it buzzing by your ear, but you just know that if you turn on the light to try to find it, it won't make an appearance. So you try to get back to sleep, hoping there's still some juice in the 'earth no mat' (does anyone have any idea why the heck electric/potion mozzie repellant thingies are called that in Japan? Apart from 'electric/potion mozzie repellant thingie being a really dumb name?), and hoping that not being able to currently hear it means it has actually gone. Which it never has, of course, it's always just before you drift off that you hear that bzzzzz again.

So we spent two sleepless, ITCHY nights, making me wonder just how much blood one mother mozzie needs - does she just keep topping up with fresh blood until she finds somewhere to lay her eggs? Or were there more? There probably were on the second night, when we found the balcony door open in the morning.

It could also be dani, bedbugs, but I don't think so. They leave a particular kind of small red bite, and don't attack for only two nights. Nevertheless, the mattress and bedding has all been changed and 'aired' (if you can call it that on a rainy damp day, and inside!). I will have to vacuum them too, I suppose.

Kanji's theory was that it was a flea. Apparently he caught a flea on himself. Instantly rang me to report it, and I supposed I was supposed to react with great interest and panic and DO something... all I did was sigh, swear under my breath at why I always have to 'do something' and vaguely tell him I didn't think animal fleas bit humans. He calls me later to tell me some site on the internet says they do. He also found out that if you place a basin of water with a splash of sake in it in the room, it'll attract the fleas. So he rushes home to put the plan into action. I must say I was VERY relieved when the plan turned up no fleas after an hour (and did not DARE suggest that you probably have to leave it a bit longer).

And then there's lice... are head lice really more prevalent in summer, or do I just think about them more, because of all the bugs and itchiness around anyway? My head just seems to be itchy, so I checked Amy's head - nothing. Maybe it's just sweat rash, or prickly heat. Prickly heat is a better term as it sums up perfectly the feeling you get of your skin just prickling all over, usually around the face, neck and arms. 

At least it's not a mukade. That's a centipede, but that word in English is almost cute, I much prefer the Japanese word, it seems to sum up the true evil of the creature better with those hard consonants. Lena had the bad luck to the be the first to sight one this year, behind the cabinet in the kitchen, near the laundry pile in the corner there that is supposed to be in a basket only I can't find it. I was in the shower at the time, and when I got out, I found all the laundry piled in the hall, and Amy telling me that the mukade definitely isn't in the laundry. She had gone through it to check! I can only imagine how you would do that, picking up each bit in one finger and one thumb, shaking it out a bit while taking a big step backwards and shuddering... what a sweetie, to do that for poor Lena, who was freaking out so much that I had to actually tell her off for being such a wet blanket. We are ALL horrified by mukade, Lena, not just you, and you know what? That mukade is terrified of us and hiding right now, so we are NOT going to be able to find it!

Usually I blame my old house, but this week I heard the mukade horror story from hell from a woman whose house is only 5 or 10 years old - one bit her on her face in bed!  I've only seen one upstairs - crawling across Erica's bed when she was three months old. I had her in my arms, feeding her at the time when I saw it, which was better of course than seeing it crawl ON her, but I still set off the Daddy alarm, and escaped downstairs while he hunted and murdered it.

ugh enough about bugs

8:31

and every intention to get off to bed, NOW, after a sleepless night last night thanks to one stupid annoying mozzie.

Weird things happening last night, like Lena getting up to check the balcony door, and saying it was open, and me thinking she was just sleepwalking, or it was shut but not latched, and going back to sleep, only to find the balcony door open in the morning. So that's where all those bloody mozzies came from.

And speaking of blood, Erica had a nosebleed - she did this last summer too, every day. And yes, I put towels down, but she's in a rolling stage, so she managed to get her undersheet and blanket too! So all of that was washed today, but not until the other catch-up loads went through, so only hung right now on those double-wide hangers inside because it's apparently going to rain again tonight!

I sometimes wonder what on earth I would do without that strip of wood around the walls in a Japanese style room, just above head height. If I was rich, in a big old house, and it was the 'zashiki' I guess I'd hang pictures off it of calligraphy scrolls and ancient buddhist priests. But this is a small house full of people, so it gets used as a convenient rainy-day "just until I get around to putting them outside" laundry hanger.

Once when my sister-in-law came over to clean up a bit before I got back from the hospital or NZ or something, she made sure to quite specifically tell Kanji that this shelf thingy needed to be dusted inside. Dear thing, she thought it being completely full of dust meant that I didn't know. Do you think Japanese people will ever get used the idea that sometimes we know fully darn well something needs to be done, but just don't want to do it anyway?

Amy just handed me some grapes. I love summer fruit! Waffling on here, waiting to sleep, just waiting now for the girls to get their pyjamas on.

To add to the weird things last night, Erica woke up with a BOING, which she never does, exclaiming at about 6am that it was SUN. I kind of sleepily told her to get some clothes on then... then drifted off to sleep again. Only to wake myself with a BOING half an hour later when the plastic set of drawers crashed over. Amy told me what had happened, and I quickly checked Lena and Erica - sound asleep of course, couple of sloths those two. Wonder where they get it?

This is Erica's drawers, she must have unbalanced them rifling through them. They are set in a place where they can't fall on anyone sleeping (I'm a bit earthquake paranoid in that way) but still would have hurt a bit if she had been standing in front of them. Their backs are to the end of the bunk, so I'm musing ways to tie them on. The first thing I thought of was kimono ties - another sign of summer is that the yukata box has been dragged out, the girls excitedly trying them on to see which ones fit them this year.

iphone sync finished, grapes finished (the girls are still working on theirs). I'm going to take out the chicken for dinner tomorrow and chill a bottle of wine. I'm going to be SUCH a good girl tomorrow, and do all the laundry and cooking in the morning, then go for a SWIM before work, just so I can come home, and sit straight down and have that glass of wine. Already looking forward to it.

SILENCE

From me, that is. June started all gung-ho, but well, what can you say, LIFE intervenes, doesn't it. And facebook. Twice I've sat down now with a nice glass of wine on a Friday night, intending to use that sweet spot in between glasses 2 and 3 to write and gotten totally distracted by such fundamentally important things as someone's new hammock, or a recipe for pie.

We spent the weekend in Munakata with Kristin and family, and Christine and Nao. We had a 4th July barbecue with hot dogs and hamburgers. We went to see a lit candle rainbow at a Tanabata festival, with some dancing. Then came home and drank wine while trying not to be driven mad by the sound of seven kids thumping and squealing and the dog joining in. We stayed the night, which was a 'trial run' of this summer's intended road trip - to see if we could actually fit our stuff, mattresses, tent, ground sheet, food bag, toys, beach bags, blankets and pillows, plus us, in the car and not forget anything.

Sunday on the way home, we went for our first beach visit this year, yay!!!! It was just one of those lovely afternoons with the kids - chatting away in the car, going on an adventure down strange streets that look like they go somewhere on the map, finally finding a beach, the swimming of course, being given watermelon by complete strangers, AmePote chips in the car, a lovely refreshing onsen, arriving home while it's still light, for a quick dinner of frozen pizza, fried eggs and chips then flopping onto the sofa to watch a movie.

Today I went swimming for the second time since signing up for the pool in April, 800m today. Amy and Lena have an open school this afternoon, Baachan is going to pick up Erica from kindy, and it's ham steaks and pineapple for tea fitted around juku and piano lessons.

 I've designated Tuesday "blog day" (as opposed to AFWJ Day on Wednesday, and "work" day on Monday, job hunting and getting things ready to sell at auction), so I have to fit that in sometime (oh, how about now? good idea) PLUS find those damn health check coupons I got a few weeks ago, so I can go get strangers to poke and prod me in all my naughty bits, which is, of course, preferable to dying of cancer of those naughty bits.

Flood, pumpkin and an award-winning portrait

Nakatsu flooded. Finally. Only been waiting for that, since, well, since I moved to this house with the stream out the back, sea to the north and rivers on both sides. Every rainy season, and every typhoon season, one town or another somewhere in Japan gets it. The news is so sensational you get the feeling that entire areas of the country are underwater, but when you look more closely, it's just a few houses along the river bank in one isolated obscure town. So I figured our time would come, we have a nice big healthy river running through town, looking for all the world like it would be quite happy to jump the banks and come visit us all.

And today was the day. Actually, there was no water at all in town, and the stream behind my house wasn't even high. But 'Nakatsu, Nakatsu' was all over the news, because a few years ago the city incorporated a bunch of mountain villages inland up the river, and THEY flooded, along with a bigger town 'next to' our town (actually an hour's drive away), Hita.

I've only been as far as the river in town to look, and then only to reassure myself it wasn't ready to overflow any time soon. There are locks on the river to help regulate the flow past the main parts of town to the coast. I heard our beautiful local landmark Aonodomon was flooded, and part of the cycling road (the former railway) was washed away. I hope to get a look sometime! Maybe Saturday if we go visit someone...

In other news, we got a pumpkin. In Japan, people often give you random vegetables, especially in season. Quite a big one, so I decided today would be pumpkin day! Lena swanned into the kitchen this morning, and said, "pumpkin soup!". I thought she has read by mind, but she was just reading the school meal menu. Yep, I picked pumpkin soup day to have pumpkin day. Never mind, I was not to be thwarted! As an extra challenge, I decided to not BUY anything. I ended up with just under a quarter of a pumpkin boiled up Japanese style, just under a quarter cooked with a cream sauce and topped with cheese, a quarter put aside for pumpkin tempura on Friday night to pop on top of our Takamatsu udon (another random food gift) and somewhat over a quarter went into a pumpkin risotto. Which the kids hated, so now there's a little on the stove for Kanji, and FIVE bowls of it in the freezer for my lunches for the next week!

I can't write pumpkin without thinking of Erica, whom I have always nicknamed Pumpkin. At one point I thought up some suitable vegetable nicknames for the other two, but forgot them! So we tried again today, starting with Tomato for Lena, cos she likes them, and Carrot for Amy, because it was the first thing she saw when she opened the fridge. Actually, it was the second thing, the first thing she saw was Ginger Flower, so she decided she liked that better, and I decided Ma Petit Chou suited Lena far better than Tomato. Little cabbage.

Half way through my immensely unpopular dinner, which also featured soggy frozen chicken, Baachan called, or rather she called Kanji and he called me, to tell us about some prize Amy and I had won in a photo contest. Which made no sense at all to me, until I remembered our little modeling gig last year!

The photographer did submit a very caravaggist/18thc-romantic-painting-like portrait of me and Amy to the photography contest, and WON! How bizarre to think we were on wall somewhere with people saying "Oh, such lovely lighting" (and thinking "god she could have at least brushed her hair"). And upon winning, he presented us with a poster-size print. Baachan is sweetly proud, and will photocopy a copy for us - while she gets the real thing framed and sticks it on the wall in the Stand so she can tell everyone how like the Mona Lisa I look.

Meanwhile, Lena burst into tears. She's the one who wants to become a model, after all. But, as I reminded her, she was in the shop window for 3-4 months!! Then Amy got upset that Lena was upset, and Lena got over being upset about the picture only to be upset that she had made Amy upset by being upset, and then Erica packed a paddy because she didn't want to leave, because she loves Baachan.... sigh!

Nothing else for it but to buy everyone ice cream on the way home. It worked.

Mud, lawns, and being RIGHT, dammit!

I heard a wonderful sound floating through the windows on a drowsy hot June morning the other day while I was work - that of a lawnmower.

At first it was just background noise, then after a while I recognized it, and realized that it had also made me feel kind of relaxed and content.

It's a sound I associate with lazy Saturday and Sunday afternoons in summer in New Zealand, hanging out at home, sunbathing on the patio, or reading a book on the sofa; or (later on in life) cracking open the wine for a gentle afternoon slipping into evening.

The scent also reached me, a scent that still transports me instantly back to school days, and grass fights. Whenever the grassy fields that surround NZ schools are mowed, out come the students to throw handfuls of grass at each other (or stuff it down their shirts, when they're a bit older and searching for any excuse to 'accidentally' touch another body).

It's a sound of perfect suburban contentment - and one entirely unfamiliar in Japan.

Apart from small patches in the middle of a Japanese garden, no-one has lawns here, except committed hobbyists and frantic foreigners. And no institutions have them. Schools here are surrounded by dirt, with a huge sandy field for sports.

When it rains, this sand turns quickly to mud. The worst is Erica's daycare. The sand there is thick, like a sandpit, all the way up to the entry way - there's no path, you have to walk through the sand. I've learned now to store my work shoes in my car and wear sneakers or sandals to drop her off, but at first, I made the mistake more than once of dropping her off in my work shoes, and getting coated with sand and mud.

But the small university where I teach is different, more progressive.They teach architecture and technology and computing and engineering and tick the right boxes in many ways, including having actual LAWNS all over the place - in the quadrangle where students hang out at lunch, in the more decorative areas surrounding the main lecture building, and EVEN ON THE SPORTS FIELD. This last example is simply amazing in Japan. Actually having actual lawn to play sports on is almost unheard of.

This is why I heard a lawnmower that day, working there. And it sounded just so right to me!

I've heard all the reasons - the excuses - as to why dirt, and not grass, is necessary at Japanese schools. And I've heard the other side - that grass is actually much easier to maintain that most Japanese think. My friend's husband studied about it. And I think my college's example is a case in point - this is a school that prides itself on modern, environmentally friendly solutions. We only use air conditioning for two months a year. Most of the interiors are lit naturally, and artificial light is kept to a minimum. They even switch off the office lights during the lunch hour! I'm pretty certain that if grass was really so horrifically expensive, environmentally destructive and impossible to maintain, they wouldn't do it.

I think what's really going on is institutional inertia. Generation after generation of people who accept the 'wisdom' of those who have gone before, without ever questioning it. My husband is now the President of the PTA, but even so, we have no power to change anything. He just wants to go on doing what was done before.

The most frustrating thing is KNOWING I am right, and 'they' are wrong. To be sure, many of 'them' also know I am right, but feel more comfortable going along with the status quo, but still!

When you live your life in a foreign country, all of your assumptions are called into question. There is no such thing as 'common sense'. There is no consensus about what is right. Part of learning how to live in a foreign country is accepting that fact. Along the way, your views and opinions change. Sometimes you simply accept that there are two (or more) ways of doing something, and no-one is right. Sometimes you reach the conclusion that 'they' are right, and your own culturally accepted way of doing things was not the best choice after all.

But then there those other times.... the times where no matter how long you've been here, or how many times people have tried to explain something to you, you just know, that you are RIGHT!

And this is one of them.

Come on Japan, you NEED lawns!!!!

Show Tunes

Amy and Lena have really gotten into show tunes lately. Kids love musicals! We caught the tail end of Singing in the Rain last week. I remember watching that movie as a kid, on a Saturday afternoon on TV, the only other choice in NZ being cricket or rugby....

The one song that stuck with them though, wasn't the title hit, but another one called 'Good Morning':



They like Dirty Dancing too, but again, not the classics - they like this one:

I suppose this one is a bit of cliche..




Another one they sing a lot is this one:



I'll add more as I hear them singing them! I hope this post will be a nice little memory for them in years to come.

Here's one!

 

Bikes, Bands and Bitches vs. Beauty, Babies and Business

Mid-life crisis sucks.

Here I am, half-way to dead and still nothing much to show for it. I think the only consolation is knowing that you're not the only one, that this particular existential crisis, like the rough teen years, seems to affect all but the most smug and the most ignorant. If you're gearing up right now to tell me it didn't happen to you, all I have to say to you is 'give it time, baby, give it time'. I was a smug non-crisis type only two years ago, then smash, down came the house of cards.

It appears to hit men and women a little differently. I'll give you, oh, three seconds to take another look at this blog post title and decide which set of three applies to men, and which to women...

I decided a few years ago, that hit with the mid-life crisis, men did one of three things - they got that bike they had always wanted, they picked up their guitar again and had another go and being the rockstar they always wanted to be or, they had an affair. Bikes, bands or bitches, and I stand by that 'bitches' because any woman who knowingly sleeps with a man who she KNOWS has a wife and family at home RIGHT NOW is indeed a bitch.

With my man, it was bands, and I remember commenting to another guitar widow, 'Well at least they're not having an affair'. Only the lead singer of one of the bands did have an affair, with a go-go girl, for god's sake, but maybe he's just greedy and is right at this moment in a bike shop somewhere coveting his next piece of eternal youth.

Actually the band thing was a stellar choice, in my opinion, I had a lot of fun with it, revisiting my own teenage punk era and becoming the No.1Groupie. It revitalized our social life, as we had been heading down different roads, me with work colleagues, him with his club, but the band thing we always did either as a couple, or even as a family. While the band fizzled out, we still go out for a date, and go see a band!

And women's crises seems to revolve around beauty, or rather the loss of it, and babies and business, or work, and the balance between them. Haven't had a baby yet? Gotta get one. Or at least obsess a bit about it before deciding you're okay without one. Got one and devoted your life to it? Gotta get back to work! Worked your butt off? Quit and spend more time with the family. Or toss all that and go get a facelift, go on a diet, or buy a new wardrobe, wear shoes that are too high or skirts that are too short just to prove to yourself that you've still 'got it'.

I'm definitely in the 'got to get back to work' camp. Not that I haven't worked all the way through, part-time at least, but in a kind of jobbing around manner, always with the idea in the back of my head that one day, I would figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up, and go and do it. Only I woke up one day, all grown up, and still no idea.

Anyone else have any idea where my life went and what I should do with it when I find it again?

Funnies

At Amy's request, a few of today's funnies:

Erica: While explaining to Lena why Erica wasn't sufficiently horrified at her mentioning that someone 'died' in their imaginary game, I pointed out that for four-year olds, dying just means lying down, going to sleep, and then you go to the hospital and the doctor fixes you. And what they are REALLY afraid of is their family going away and their being left alone. In order to prove this, I said to Erica, "What would you do if Mummy went away". Without skipping a beat she replied, "Go to the toilet with Lena." Guess she's used to Mummy going away!!

Lena: During today's English lesson, we learned contractions and apostrophes. I told them to NEVER use them with plurals, to which, of course, they replied, "What are plurals?". "Books," I said, "and sofaS and..." and we went on to add more and more plurals. "Bums!" Lena said, then Amy said "bottoms!" and I said "boobs". Then Lena said "We'd better not say the next one..." We didn't, we were too busy laughing at Lena.

Erica again: During the same lesson, Erica had completed her lesson, and gone off to play with her toy kitchen. She brought over the tea cups and tea pot and prepared to pour us all tea. "Oh, I don't WANT any tea!" Amy said, annoyed at the intrustion. "It's okay, it's a TOY" Erica replied.

Amy: STILL doing the same lesson, while we were all heads-together examining a map, Amy decided to ambush Lena with a big "BOO!". Lena didn't move an eyelash. Amy said, "Lena, why didn't you get a fright?"

Graduated!!!

Lena Graduated!!! At first the doctor said 'shuu...something' a word I don't know, but I had NO trouble understanding what she meant! Then she congratulated Erica for graduating.

Meaning, she has STOPPED taking medicine for asthma, and no longer needs to go in for monthly check-ups. Thank GOD and it's only about five years after I thought she should stop!! Well actually it's probably not that long and I could probably check somewhere on this blog, but it certainly FEELS that long!

I immediately went out and celebrated by spending money.

Getting to this point was a long journey, even without counting the comedy of errors in getting to this particular check-up:

After missing the appointment last Tuesday, we went in on Friday morning. The system here is appointments in the afternoon, drop-ins in the morning. If you miss your appointment, you can't reschedule (too much trouble for the nurses to track down the doctor to check her timetable), you have to come in again as a drop-in. So on Friday, the girls took the morning off school, and I crossed my fingers that we'd be finished by 10am for Erica's Observation Day at Kindy. One of those lovely, more onto-it nurses you wish you could be blessed with all the time twigged that we had the wrong day, and our doctor wasn't in that morning, so asked me would you like to just see whoever was there, or would you prefer to come back next Wednesday when she is here? I chose Wednesday, partly because the kindy class observation day start time was looming down on me, also because I had forgotten to load my wallet with this month's health budget cash, but mostly because I really wanted to see 'our' doctor, because she had been tantalizingly mentioning stopping, and had halved the doses already, and I thought a different doctor would just do repeats to not step on her toes. 

Roll on Wednesday and I get all the kid in the car, school bags ready, health budget firmly ensconced in my wallet, and off we go... only to see that it's paper recycling day. Mum will remember last time we did it, and she suggested we go back and get the papers, and and I said "NOOOO!!!" because you have to sort them and stack them and tie them up and well it just takes forever. But luckily at the beginning of this month I did all that, so it was ready to go, so we swooped back home and Amy and Lena helped me bring the stuff out to the road - three stacks of magazines and newspapers and two bundles of broken-down cardboard boxes.

The driving down the road, I saw some bags of clothes and realized I'd forgotten to put the old clothes out for recycling! I decided to flag it, but then realized I didn't have my 'doctor bag' with all the insurance and hospital ID cards in it. So back we flew again, only for me to realize the doctor bag was in the car all along. Oh well, the clothes got put out! Amy threw them out the window of the car as we passed the specially designated power pole.

We finally got the hospital, Erica was wonderfully well-behaved, while Amy and Lena stunned me with a full-on, claws-out cat-fight over who got to hold the iphone while they scrolled through the photos! Shame on you girls! How embarrassing!

Amy is on one puff a day for another two months, Erica had a bit of a lingering cough this month, so she is continuing, and got some cough meds thrown in as well. And Lena got to stop!!! She couldn't believe it at first, she checked with me two or three times. Then of course she immediately turned to her sister and skited about it. Sigh.

More blatting around ensued: combini trip for snacks and Erica's kindy lunch (which I didn't have time to prepare), girls to school, Erica to kindy, me to the chemist to pick up the meds, then to the camera shop to deliver some old disposable cameras we found, then to the combini again to get me an iTunes card, since this month's medicine and hospital bill was so low, to the big drug store to get cheap cereal and bananas for breakfast, to the cheap clothes store to get some clothes: $40 for jeans, a belt, a tank top, a lacy knit over-top, and a necklace. Not bad!

And now to some of that useful stuff, I suppose. I HAVE to fit in some laundry today, between typhoons. And send some jewellery and accessories to Maria to sell on trademe, and sort some photos, and clean a bit more of the spare room maybe, so I can work on some more stuff to send to Maria on Friday.

Typhoons and Time

Typhoon news: stupidly humid, cloudy sky, rain off an on all day, but not a breath of wind. Typical northern Oita typhoon! I was told Mt Aso protects us from the worst of it - they usually come up from the south-west - and I think there might be something in that!

TIME is on my side for once. THREE hours of work this week!!! With all the running around after the kiddies, it certainly doesn't feel as 'free' as it looked on the weekend. I still haven't done anything useful... well I'm going to go and do something useful now then, get Erica to bed with time to read her a book!

Babysitting

Here's me and Kanji at the izakaya we found on May 28 after about an hour of sad trudging through the city finding out just how many restaurants have a holiday on a Monday, including my first choice and favorite place, Bistro de Moulin. Walking towards it, we were already planning what to get - the 3000yen course or the 5000? Definitely the cheese board, and he'd have one glass of beer while I had one glass of champagne, then we'd share a bottle of wine. Suddenly he said, "What if it's not open. It's Monday". Oh horrors, I thought, having already planned out that cheese board and champers, and I started to get ready for the disappointment and plan other venues, while he tried to reassure me it would be open. It wasn't. Neither was the next place we tried, or the next. We were walking in circles by now, going round to check some place or another, doubling back to try another, checking menu boards on the way, going past one place to check another then coming back - the one we finally chose was one we had initially passed by, then came back to. It's a newish place, with the benefit of having private booths with seats, not tatami.

The food was fine, your nice 'modern' izakaya type stuff, not down-home smelly old guys type place (though the mizuna with EVERYTHING was a bit much!) Above, from left to right is chilli ebi, a sashimi platter, and a gobo salad (crispy shaved burdock root. Man that sounds rude!). I had wanted some nice wine, but izakayas and beer just go together so I was happy with that.

The best thing by far was the fried cheese. If you can't give me a cheese board, at least give me fried cheese! This is the BIGGEST fried cheese I've even seen, as fat as my fingers, but melted all the way through. I think I will go here again just for this dish.

Kanji outside the bar we went too after the izakaya. His friend drew that picture on the wall.

But what I REALLY wanted to talk about was the babysitting.

This was the first time NZ Grandma babysat while we went out. Usually, the kids stay with Baachan for the night. Now, I can't fault Baachan - she's nearly 80 yet she takes them on, all three of them, feeds them, bathes them, and well I don't really care where or when or how they sleep, as long as they do, and I'm not there!! As she's gotten older, she's more likely to take them out to dinner rather than cook, or to call her daughter to take the kids shopping, but she still never says no, which I love her for!

But there is a difference in how the two grandmas see their role, how they react to problems, and how much they value the idea of me and Kanji as a couple going out.

First of all, we left Erica with a fever... my mum didn't blink an eye at this. Sick kid, so what? I would NEVER have been able to leave a feverish kid with Baachan, she still thinks of fevers as near death, while Mum sees them as, well, just a kid being a bit sick.

We got two calls from the kiddies that night, one to say goodnight, and one to tell us Erica was being sick. Lena called, and I could hear the commotion in the background, and got put on to Amy, and to Grandma, who APOLOGIZED for Lena having called us, she would never have let her call us if she'd known, but while Amy and Grandma were dealing with Erica, Lena had decided the best thing to do was to call Mum. If it had been Baachan, it would have been Baachan calling us, expecting us (me) to return home forthwith.

Because Mum not only viewed a sick kid differently, but viewed a parents' night out differently: to her, our night out together was important, and the kids should not expect to call us in the middle of it with random concerns, and especially not expect us to rush home at the slightest sign of trouble. She even told them off for calling us, and, as I said, apologized for disturbing us. I think if it had been Baachan, we would have had to come home pretty much straight away, acting all concerned, even if we did think she only had a slight cold...

In Japanese society, while the idea of 'couple time' is unusual, the idea of mothers having time away from their kids is almost completely unheard of. It's as if Baachan sees us as 'just popping out for a minute' but always ready to swoop back in if the chicks call for us. The moment a problem crops up, she'll call, with the expectation that we (I) will soon return home and fix everything.

We were so used to this that we groaned when we heard that second phone call, so sure it would beckon us home. It was an unexpected delight to find that, despite the illness and chaos, Grandma was coping just fine thank you, and you two stay out!!

So we did!

Tonight

Erica's asleep on the sofa, Kanji is watching awful Japanese variety shows (lo-ra!) with Amy and Lena, and letting them taste his wine (YUCK!), I am steaming from a hot bath lubricated with red wine.Fridays are often like this, K is home early, we eat together, we have no obligations the next day, so everyone is relaxed, the kids ignore their homework, and we all ignore the clock!

Jiichan is back in hospital, the cancer has come back and we're going to see him in Kurume on Sunday - Father's Day.

And I've finally seen some photos of my adorable first great-niece, Isabelle, what a little treasure! She looks like Erica, dark and fat!

Life goes on.

Erica just wet herself. Guess who cleaned it up and changed her?

While we were watching that section on Music Station where they get kids to listen to the songs that were popular when they were born. It's fun because I have kids in shogakko, so that means they often play songs from when I was living in Japan before I got married, when I listened to quite a bit of J-Pop, so I actually get that "ooo natsukashiii!!" feeling! Nevertheless I always guess them wrong, and K gets them right. And my kids know NONE of them. I don't play much old music, I think I'll have to start catching them up on the history of music!

Busy Weekend

Phew! What a busy weekend! I'm trying not to go out to save money, but stuff just came up. Going out twice in a weekend happens sometimes, but three times is rare, plus I added in a trip all the way to Oita first thing Monday morning, dropping in for a chat with Jo and Katy on the way back. No wonder I spent the rest of Monday flat on the sofa playing video games while diligently ignoring the scattered detritus of three days of no tidying up!

Friday night was Mari's birthday party. She was 23. She's a New Zealander with Japanese parents come to experience life in Japan as an ALT. So it was mostly ALTs, all in English and funnily enough, mostly talking about teaching, though Mari and I also compared notes about growing up bilingual in NZ and Japan. We went to the Turkish restaurant. They just started a new chicken kebab. I was so eager to try one that I went the day before, picked up my pita chicken sandwich and promptly rushed off, having forgotten to pay! Even when I went back to pay, they hadn't realized. Well maybe they just thought I was charging them for the five minutes of English menu proofreading I did while waiting for the chicken to grill.

I had the kids with me that night too, Kanji was working and since we already had them lined up to go to Baachan's to stay the night on Saturday, they had to come. They were pretty good, or rather Amy was, Lena was 90% good and Erica about 40%! Nothing got spilled or broken though (and I blame the owner, Sevki, who likes kids and it was HIM who gave her the life-size lamb to play with and the BEACH BALL!).

Saturday was a combination date night with my hubby, and a night out with some of the Keio staff, so half English half Japanese, and I managed to completely avoid the subject of teaching! It helped that the occasion was the 'Japan debut' of the 'band' of one of Keio staff (I say 'band' cos it was actually just him, he left the other half of the band in the US, though another Keio staff member played guitar with him for one song, and his wife, who also works there, sang with him on another song.). He was really good, I would love to hear the full band live!

Dinner out with hubby first was at a adorable little Italian/fusion restaurant/bar tucked behind the station. We did consider going to it during our last date, but it seemed too full and lively and we didn't want to walk in there, skulk our way to the only table left and compete with the drunks for service all night. But at 6pm on Saturday evening, it was nearly empty, so we got a good table, got personally shown the wine selection (all chardonnay, no sav. blanc alas) and specials board by the chef/owner, who goes to one of K's clubs. We had some superb food, great oysters, a squid and broccoli dish that is about ten times as yummy as it sounds, and a cheese board. Well you know I am instantly happy once a restaurant has a cheese board and some chardy.

I wore some fabulous shoes. Spike heeled black suede ankle boots that had me in pain after the first block. I really need to get a handle on the shoe fetish. Luckily though, I just happened to have a pair of jandals stashed in my shiny silver handbag (gotta be prepared, girls!) and changed into them. And it was when I was changing BACK into the killer heels before we arrived at the 'live house' (Japanese for gig venue) that K sneaked a little kiss... more about that later...

There were several bands on that night, and knowing several radio and live music people we knew half the people in the club and had a great time catching up and introducing people. We also got rollicking drunk, if the bottle of wine and two of beer at the restaurant weren't enough. We could have done without the final handles at Garden, I think, but everyone was going there and it was a good chance to actually chat with people without having to scream at them.

The bands were at the Biliken club, which is basically the only live music venue left now in Nakatsu since Tropicoco burned down last year, and Gate closed a little while ago. The only other place is the studio Player, which has a few tables guests can sit at, but is a bit crowded if your fan base is more than, say, ten people. Which leads us to the main topic of conversation on Sunday night...

I slept until midday on Sunday, what a TREAT!! I woke up lots, I just kept reminding myself that I had absolutely nothing to get up for, and drifted back to sleep. Bliss! I picked the kids up at 5:30 for a 6pm outing. This evening was the whole family, family friends, Indian curry and speaking Japanese all night. It was folk music event (picture 4 50-yr olds taking turns to sit in the corner and gently strum Japanese folk favorites from the 70's).

The Indian restaurant is in an old house, so there are two main restaurant sections, and just one small tatami room, but as we had six kids between us, we got the tatami room. Cue loads of curry, naan, beer and wine, and the conundrum of what on earth to do about the lack of decent music venues, and how sad it is that Troppies went, and why he left in the end and all that gossip... and why Gate closed down, and all that gossip.... and could we open a new place, and what kind of food could we have (how about NZ food? someone said, but I said Nah, NZ food is not interesting!), how much a month's rent is and how many gigs/patrons you'd need to cover it and how we could take turns working there... Ah, pipe dreams you say, BUT you never know, these are guys in their 40's, with the business contacts, confidence and energy to pull off something like this. I sure hope they do, I said the FIRST thing you have to do is have a Halloween party!!!

Oh, and that little kiss... We were SEEN and our friends were reporting our little dalliance back to us less than 24 hours later as we sat down to dinner. Damn small town. 

Dead Guy

Anyone following the Guy/MacDonald murder case?

I don't usually follow a murder case so closely, but something about this one is just fascinating me. Maybe it's because it's close to somewhere I used to live:

(The murder happened at the Red A pin, I lived on the road centre right called Nannestads Line.)

Or because it was so mysterious when it happened - a young handsome guy, Scott Guy, a dad with a pregnant wife, all round good guy, popular, successful, no enemies or criminal back story, is found lying dead one morning in front of his still-running car, shot in the neck. No one has the slightest idea who did this, who would want to do it. It's like the first scene of a particularly good episode of a crime procedural drama, when you are left thinking, "How the hell are they going to find out who did it?" No motive, no robbery, no witnesses, no murder weapon, no fingerprints, no leads. For nine months, the family periodically put out pleas for information, and then...

The case took a sensational turn when Guy's brother-in-law (his sister's husband), who was a pall-bearer at his funeral and his best man at his wedding, was charged with the murder, the motive apparently being jealousy and hard feelings about the future of the farm they were both working on.

Or because it's such a cliff-hanger whodunnit. I'm totally undecided as to whether MacDonald did it or if he's just being framed by bored policemen. The evidence rests on a pair of boots that are now gone, whether or not MacDonald knew more than he should have about the murder, and a previous bullying campaign MacDonald waged against Guy's family in order to intimidate them into leaving, including notes and vandalism. Okay that last bit sounds a bit suspicious...

Before the police determined that Guy had been shot, everyone thought he had had his throat cut and that was the story going around, but apparently this Ewan MacDonald was saying he had been shot. So right now in court, there is an awful lot of minute testimony going down about exactly how much of the body he had seen, and who said what to whom and when. Getting people to remember the grapevine nearly two years after the event!

Awaiting the next turn of the screw...

Blat

Got my Green Machine back again Monday. I think I might have kept the Stream a weeee bit too long this time, it was a bit of a jolt at first, though after the first trip and stop, I was once again converted.

The Green Machine being a 660cc 3-door (plus rear door/boot/vertical hatchback), high roofed, high seated tin can on wheels with seat covers like something of one of Air New Zealand's cheaper plane seats circa 1987, and doors that go 'clangggg' when you shut them; but with powerful, light steering and a wheel base so tight you feel like you could do a 360 on the spot. It's a Mitsubishi Toppo, and I think it's called that because it can spin like a top. Obviously it's a much better vehicle for driving and parking in the narrow streets and tiny spaces in our old part of town, the old castle town. Issues include a missing passenger side visor, a driver's side visor hanging by one screw and often falling down obscuring my view, and sticky doors that threaten to not open at all (that's happened in the past). The automatic door lock button on the key is broken too, but I think that if I unscrewed it and replaced the battery it would work again. It's just that a little job like that is not a priority, in fact it's so far down on the priority list that it comes after 'blob on sofa wondering what to do next'.

And the Stream is a long, sleek, 5-door, 7-seater with all leather interiors, fully automatic with doors that make a comforting 'whump' when you shut them, and hard, fast, COLD air conditioning, a feature which is going to have me back at Jiichan and Baachan's several times over the summer I think, begging to borrow it again! You blat around town in the Green Machine, while you glide around in the Beige Beauty. But it's looooong, and heavy to turn, and while it has a backing camera, the front bonnet is so fashionably sloped that I can't see where the car ends (and the concrete wall begins).  Its size also means I have to turn around to do up Erica's seat belt, whereas with the Toppo, I can reach behind with my left hand and do it! So despite all the comforts of streaming along in the Beige Beauty, I am keen to quickly switch back to my little Green Machine.