Double-Booked

Seems I am failing at the summer scheduling. I've managed to double book us twice last week, with one more coming up and then Kanji threw one in a double-booking on top. That was just him saying Amy could work on Saturday, while actually we were going to Kunimi. Well, his mistake, and he quickly called back to cancel.

I thought Aki, the computer guy, was coming on Monday evening, so I made curry. Can't have him slave over the hot computers for hours and not feed him! Then Kanji came home and called him (why he didn't call him earlier, I don't know) and he couldn't come, so we arranged for him to come Tuesday night (I threw together a Greek salad and made a chicken mix to put in pita bread). Then Mai-chan texted and said yes, she could do the piano lesson on Tuesday.

Since the piano and computer are in the same corner of the room, that made for an interesting evening! Me and Kanji just sat there drinking beers and barking orders at the children, and invited both Mai and Aki to my birthday party on the 28th.

Thursday was much, much worse. On Sunday I had arranged with Maia's Mum for them to come over on the 9th, and we could have dinner together then go to the festival. I was looking in my diary at that moment in time, and nothing else was written there except 'Toro Matsuri'....

I had completely forgotten that I had agreed to go help set up the festival, and while I KNEW we had karate on Thursday, for some reason my brain did not connect 'Thursday' and 'the 9th' despite it being on the page in front of me!

I handled this in a very Japanese manner, quitting nothing, burying my head in the sand, and hoping for the best. As the day progressed it seemed obvious even to me that I was going to conveniently 'forget' about setting up. Then Kanji came home early and saved me from the karate lesson. We were free!

Then Sevki called and was adamant that he had to give me a bottle of wine NOW. And I should go to YoumeTown NOW and go meet the girl in a white t-shirt with a heart on it to get your wine. Luckily, just at that moment in time we had all decided to go get ice cream, so I ordered Erica a Bear-shaped parfait, handed Amy my wallet, told everyone 'chotto matte' and ran outside to meet the wine-toting heart-t-shirt girl. I love how Maia's Mum reacted when I returned a few minutes later and plonked a bottle of wine in the middle of the table outside the ice cream shop. So cool. "Oh, wine, how nice. Turkish, you say? How unusual. Hmm, what's that writing on the bottle, must be Turkish!" Like you have wine with your ice cream at the mall every day.

Speaking of Sevki, his birthday party is on the 18th, and I have strong hopes of going - no one parties like Sevki! But the Bon dancing by Baachan's house is on the same night. Bright side thinking: once at Baachan's the kids invariably insist on staying, Erica especially. Home is so damn boring. All I have to do is turn up early, let them turn on the charm, casually ask if they might stay, as if it meant nothing at all to me, and then run away gleefully jumping for joy. Wish me luck.