singing in the rain

R is back from her week away with the PILs, who, I many have mentioned before, even in the rain feel the need to take her out by car down to the local park or whatever so she can do her business, despite the fact that I have told them numerous times that R is actually toilet trained - you know, we have little doggy toilet sheets here that we put in her house and IF she has to be home alone or IF it is like the middle of rainy season or something, then she can have a widdle there without having to hold it and suffer.

But NO, PILs somehow think that it isn't necessary, and are always crooning about how they didn't need to use any of the toilet sheets when R stays with them - they think they are like super good or something. But in actual fact, they are *+%ing with R's mind!! (lol). After a few days with them, she thinks it is bad to use her toilet, so she "gamans"* until we take her outside. Now since it was pouring all day yesterday, we didnt take her out, because 1) it was pouring!! 2) R is only a small dog - close to the ground. All that water lying on the ground soaks her belly!! 3) we couldn't be bothered going out in the rain!! So she gamaned and gamaned until she exploded all over her house (not on the toilet sheet) and left the biggest puddle of piddle.

So we have to start toilet training again,*sigh* This happens everytime she stays over there. I am grateful that they look after her, especially when I had my friends here, but man I wish they at least let her piddle!!

So anyway, this morning there was a little lull in the rain, so we headed out for a quick walk, to relieve some of R's tension (and built up waz).
We used to have a raincoat for her, but I can't find it, so I did the next best thing - put a plastic bag over her! lol!

it may be a bit hard to tell, but there she is, "wrapped in plastic" lol!
And I am out and about with K on my back, and holding an umbrella (it was misty rain)

and I was in my bright red crocs, which I did take a photo of, but I couldn't save it to my mobile phone for some reason. No wonder people look at us strangely when we go out, lol!


*gaman - this strange fascination Japanese people have of suffering through it. Can be applied to nearly anything I whinge about to J.... (apparently I need to "gaman" more when there is something that pisses me off, as opposed to complaining to J about it.)but is surprisingly "forgotten" whenever a Japanese male in particular has the slightest sore thoat or cough, in which case the never "gaman" and run down to the docs asap to get some meds or have a vitamin drip (rolls eyes).

the week in review

saturday morning, 6:03am. We left home in the rain with K (awoken from her sleep to be shoved in a car seat) in a suprisingly good mood. She even managed to fall back asleep on the drive out to Narita. It only took 1hour, almost to the dot, to get from home to Narita, which is pretty cool I think! It then took me something like 20mins to find my way into the carpark - I swear they have changed things out there - I coukdn't find the carpark I usually park in, which puts me out in the open (as opposed to in those multi-story car parks where I can never remember if I am parked in the blue penguin or the yellow giraffe section) and right next to the entrance to the walkway to the airport arrivals floor. So we drove around and around, entered one carpark, then realised it was for buses and employees, so quickly exited that one (nice guy on the exit booth even told me I wouldn't have to pay - gee thanks, I mean, I was in the carpark for all of 5 seconds, I would HOPE I don't have to pay!).
It all worked out well, and i got to the arrivals hall about 10mins or so before my friends arrived, so I had just enough time to feed K her breaky before we got back in the car for the ride home! Oh, and R didn't end up coming out to the airport - actually the PIL's took her for the week, which was a great help, so that while I was off galavanting around the sights of Tokyo, she was being pampered and probably feed up with snacks all day, I bet she loved it!

We actually went all the way down to Odawara on Saturday, to see the Odawara Castle, and Sunday headed to Hakone, the bubbling hot springs of Owaku-dani, and lake Ashi-no-ko and the shrine there in the pouring, and I mean pouring rain. We came back home a bit earlier than planned on Sunday coz it was just tooo wet to do much else.

Monday it was overcast, but not raining, so we headed in to the Imperial Palace, Ginza, Omote-sando and Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine.

Tuesday was a perfect day, so we started off at the Hama-Rikyu Gardens, then caught the "water bus" up the Sumidagawa river to Asakusa. Saw a sumo wrestler down the back streets and got a photo with him - he leaned over and touched K on the head - I think I head somewhere that is supposed to bring good luck? (J knew nothing about it, hehe)! Came back home Tues afternoon for a rest, before heading back to see Tokyo Tower at night.

Friends left on a 9am train on Wed morning out to Narita and K and I have spent the last 2 and a half days lazing around, lying on the couch, taking long naps and trying to recover! K has had a cold (runny nose, all stuffed up, cough and sore throat) since Wed last week, and she got a bit of a temperature again on Sunday night (it hit 38.5) so we took her down to the outpatients again and got some meds for her. Her temp came down pretty quick. But she is STILL stuffed up. *sigh* Apart from Sunday night when she had the temp, she has been her usual genki self, but I have kept her home from playgroup this week and last week, as I don't want to have her spluttering all over the other kiddies and giving them a cold too. And I am all stuffed up too (my sore throat over the weekend has gone, but am still very flemmy). Plus yesterday was really cold, and rainy. Today is back to warm and sunny weather, so we just headed out before to buy some veges for dinner (oh, and a donut from Mister Donut for mummy's afternoon tea break.) Which got me thinking about why if

fruit = fruutsu; and
nut = nattsu; and
donut = donatsu
then why is it called Mr. Donut?

oh,and

I'm trying to gain back the respect of my friends, with an extra large chu-hai (whatcha think, gaijin wife?!lol)

cow cow

my friends left for the uk this morn,k's asleep, J's out with the boss for after work dinner and drinks, and there's a 3 hr Red Carpet special on tv now!

delayed

just got a phone call on the home phone (not another salesman....?!?!) and I was a bit stunned when I answered in my best moshi-moshi, and the guy on the other end replied with a "hi, is that you T?".

My friends who were supposed to be arriving tonight (hence the full 2-3days of procrastinating over cleaning the house) were caught in fog this morning in Brisbane - I never knew we even *HAD* fog, lol - and their plane was delayed 3 hours...but because Narita aparently has a curfew, and doesn't allow planes in after 10pm or 11pm or something, they are stuck in Sydney until tonight when they eventually get an overnight flight to arrive here tomorrow morning at 7am!! And J arrives back from the US tomorrow afternoon, at about 4pm. But I REALLY don't think I could spend a whole day sightseeing around Narita airport to be able to pick them both up in the one trip, so J will just have to make his own way home as we had already planned. Shame they didn't arrive a bit closer, isn't it.

Now I am trying to think of the logistics of arriving at Narita at 7am - does that mean I have to leave home about 5:30am? Does that mean I am going to have one cranky baby in the car with one cranky mummy driving? Hopefully R is not going to be cranky too (yes, she is coming with us- she likes going for drives)

T does Tokyo, again

am "feverently"(yeh right!) trying to clean the "house"(yeh, mouse-house) before friends arrive from home tomorrow. I went to primary school, high school and university with C. Her and the hubster, L, are stopping over in Tokyo for a week before heading off to the UK and Europe for I think 6 weeks or so of travel! Cool hey. And I am really glad that people are now stopping over in Tokyo to visit. We have had so many visitors the last 2 or so years, that I have pretty much got a "T shows you the highlights of Tokyo" package tour all worked out - taking in a Sumidagawa river cruise departing from Hama Rikyu gardens, where we try green tea, to Asakusa; Meiji Shrine and Harajuku; Tokyo Metropolitan Buildings or Tokyo Tower, etc etc. Even have a few good restaurants up my sleeve to show off the real Japanese cuisine (you know, Okonomiyaki, Sushi-train, Yaki-tori and of course an Izakaya and some ramen joints thrown in there too for good luck)

We will head out tomorrow night to pick them up from Narita (takes about 1.5hours?) around 8pm them arrive I think. So will be bathing and feeding K and walking R before we leave. In the meantime, I really need to stop procrastinating (double yeh-right) and get this place organised.......or at least throw everything hastily into the cupboards out of sight!

Yes, will get onto that - after I polish off this last oreo, lol.

調子にのって・・・

must be going weak in my old age! got a bit "into it" after my first chu-hai and went for another one, but it mustn't be sweet enough for me- 2 sips and I am giving up!
My friends in Oita would be disgraced (not only because I gave up, but look-it's a "yuzu" chu-hai) ごめんな!

the first grounding

Today I was absolutely disgusted in the behaviour of my DD.
My Darling DOG that is.

We went out air-con shopping on the weekend, as the apartment we moved into didn't come with air-con (wtf? but anyway) and managed to get a relatively powerful aircon (supposed to do 2 rooms) for a reasonable price at Yamada Denki. Now, Yamada Denki's price includes the installation fee (unless of course you need any extra things done, like changing the voltage from 100v to 200v, which was needed for the air-con we bought, and costs 2000yen each for changing at the plug in the wall, and changing it at the breaker system; and like when the distance between where the air-con unit and the outside unit is more than 4 m (ours was 6m!!), then they need to use more pipe, at 2500yen a metre - what, it made of gold or something?,). So Yamada Denki outsource the installation to a local electrician who will ring you the night before to TELL you what time they will be around the next day. Now, apart from the fact that it pisses me off that we can't request a time for the installation of the air-con that WE BOUGHT (hello, we are the CUSTOMERS here) I had plans for everyday this week (yes, my LBB- little black book - is full, full, full) so was a bit peeved when the electrician rang last night to say he would be over at 10-11am, right when I have my English playgroup. We managed to batar with him to come in the afternoon (I asked for 3pm, he said "between 2pm and 4pm" and he arrived today at 2:30pm, and asks me as he stands at the door if it is ok, even though he is a little bit early (rolls eyes)) But I digress - I only meant to say that we had an electrician come over today to install the new air-con. So I closed off the living room, where he was working and had K in the kitchen/dining area with me. As R was barking her brains out since the time the electrician rang the doorbell, I thought I would be nice to her and let her and K run around and play together. But R got sneaky, and stole one of K's stacking blocks or something, and because she KNEW she had done something bad, she ran into our bedroom with it. I tried to get it off her, but of course the more I chased her, the more she thought it was a game and kept running the other way. So she is running in and out of the bedroom, getting all hyped up when I tell her to "finish". She obviously wasn't up for that, so she ran back into the bedroom and jumped up on the bed (a big no-no : she is not allowed on the sofa or bed, and she knows it!) So as I am standing by the door, watching, R opens her legs up and wazzes ALL OVER MY DOONA! I am APPALLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She so knew what she was doing, so I am like "that is IT, you are grounded for the rest of your life!" lol. But seriously, I was really disgusted in her behaviour. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing loads of washing - the doona cover and doona, which are now speed-drying under said air-con.

I relented on R's first ever grounding, though, and took her out for her regular afternoon walk. She SO didn't deserve it thought!

In other news, J is away for the next few days in LA and San Fran for business. He took a suitcase the size of a mouse's handbag, so I am not expecting much in the way of goodies to come back with him, but that is ok. So tonight I had cheese and ham toasties for dinner, and am winding down now with a packet of doritos and a chu-hai,

which, yes, are both now well and trully empty - all 10% extra of doritos and all!

silly mummy returns

we have had a few silly mummy moments this week

this morning K, R and I (that's me, not someone named "I") went for a big walk down by the river. It's a lovely day, and since we were all up and about early, I thought a nice walk would do us wonders. I do feel energized now, I must say. I really should be more active in the mornings. anyway, after our walk, we took R home while K and I hit the shops (just the supermarket) and the bank. I grabbed a 5000yen note that was sitting by the phone and popped it into my pocket as I ran out the door. K was in the stroller, so I carried her down the stairs (1 flight only) and we set off down the street. I was a block away from home when I put my hand in my pocket - and realised there was nothing in there. I checked the other pockets - but no dosh. OMG. I tried to think back - did I actually grab the note or not? Did I put it in my purse? But no,I definitely put it in my pocket. We turned back for home, my eyes peeled to the ground for a flying 5-thou note. We were only a block away, if I dropped it somewhere, it would still be there, surely? I hoped. As luck would have it, I found it sitting happily on the middle stair outside our apartment. It must have fallen out when I was carrying K in the stroller down the stairs. Man what a big relief! Thank goodness that was just a little "silly mummy".

The best silly mummy moment I had this week, was on Tuesday. The PILs were on their way to the airport, leaving for a holiday in Hawaii, when I got a phone call to say that their neighbours rang them to tell them that the garage door had been left open! So I drove over (about 1.5hours) to close their garage door. FIL left a message on my phone to go in and say thank you to the neighbours for letting us know, and if possible give them a small gift. No worries. So I rock up to the nextdoor neighbours, N-san. They haven't seen K for a while, so they are all goo-gaa over her for a bit, then I say "thanks for letting us know about the garage and here is some biccies for you". N-san asks if I am sure it was them that told about the garage - I tell her, "yes, I got a message from FIL. It was probably your mother who rang him" She didn't sound convinced, but took the biccies anyway. We chat some more, then as I turn to go, she asks once more "are you sure it was us? We were all up pretty late this morning" so I check the message on my phone, just to assure her.......and wouldn't you know it, IT WASNT THEM! FIL's message goes "The neighbours, N-san, no, not N-san, but M-san rang us!"

I was mortified! I had to take back the biscuits, apologise and then go to the next house to say thank you. I haven't told J about this little faux pax - I think this one can probably remain our little secret, lol! How embarrassing.

P.S. I just remembered another bit of a moment - we had some friends drop over unexpectedly on Sunday afternoon. We had been away all weekend, and were eating at sushi-ro (sushi train) when they rang to ask if they could drop over, they only live about 20mins away by bike, so we said, sure! and rushed home and tried to clean up a bit (thank goodness it wasn't too bad) and in my cleaning frenzy, I shoved the potatoes, onions and garlic all into a tuperware container, out of the way. Well, the other night I pulled out the potatoes to make K some mashed potatoes, and when I tried a bite, I thought it tasted a bit wierd - I think the garlic had seeped into the potatoes with them all sitting in the same tupperware! hehe.
So I made fried potatoes for my dinner last night (man they were delish and very garlicy!!) But tonight I wanted to make niku-jaga. I wonder if the garlic flavoured potatoes will be ok to use or not? hmm? silly mummy!lol.

red carpet

on now!

bitter sweet (only not sweet at all)

note to self - don't be fooled by the 100yen goya! There is a reason why it is cheap - goya is goya, and even following this recipe for Goya Chanpuru it was still as bitter as anything. Oh, and I realised after I put everything out on the table that I forgot to put the egg in the ゴーヤチャンプル, so I hastily added it afterwards. Which is good, cause I ate everything around the goya!!

I usually make this once a year, then I remember how bad it tastes. So until next year, not more bitter gourd, I guess.

Side dish of eggplant with soy sauce and ginger garnish, 春菊(shungiku chrysanthemum leaves - the left over from nabe the other day)with ponsu which was a surprisingly nice little dish and some tuna sashimi. Looks like we are still in our "wa" phase.

the cheek!

J fixed my sunnies(-.-)bummer!(lol)

not much use now

I am not too sure what is going on. first it was the mogura getting into my socks, now the lens in my sunnies pops out all of a sudden! now i know i have always had a love/hate relation with sunnies- they either run away from me never to be found again, or throw themselves kamikaze style off my head and break their own arms, etc. Must admit this is the first time one has ever taken their own eye out,though! ok, truth be told, this a pair from the 100yen shop- bought in haste one day when yet another pair went AWOL! Now i am squinting ('〜`;)  

Wouldnt it be nice if J got me a new pair! I haven't had a good pair since I was in uni! I promise to take care of them(^-^ゞ

 

the culprit

there is like a whole gang of them:


and they seem to think my house is a luxury golf course!

news just in....

so I just went to put on a pair of socks so that we could take R for her morning walk, as the rain hasn't set in today yet.

and would you believe it, but ANOTHER pair of socks have fallen victim to the hole phenomenon. I swear, this is just too bizarre - almost every other day when I put on a pair of socks, they turn out to have a nasty big hole in them. I am starting to think that the mogura (beaver? mole? I don't know the English, should check I guess... in Australia the closest thing we have is an echidna, perhaps? lol!!) from Gaijin Wife's garden has somehow made a tunnel directly into my sock draw and is taking holidays here!

Leave my socks alone, you mogura, you!

So glad I made up that "socks" tag on this blog.....

not so rosey Roseola

K came down with a fever all of a sudden on Sunday evening. One moment, she was running around happy happy, the next she looked dull, listless, and was red hot. Temperature at 38.2. we put her to bed early, at about 7pm, with a netsu-sama sheet (what a great invention these things are!!)

on her little forehead, and she fell fast asleep...for about an hour. When she woke up she was sporting a temperature of 38.7 degrees. Another netsu-sama sheet, and another sleep later and her temperature was getting higher.

At about 10pm, it hit 40degrees, so we decided to take her to the doctors. Of course, we couldnt find the phone book (or the netsu-sama sheets for that matter, so J had to go out to buy some) in the mess that is our post-moving apartment. but thanks to the wonders of technology(a.k.a the internet, my best friend!), J found the closest emergency doctors and we headed in to the hospital at about 11pm. A quick check (we surprisingly didn't have to wait too long. J was told on the phone that if there is someone with a life-threatening problem come in, then we may have to wait, and just as we pulled into the hospital carpark, an ambulance came screaming up behind us, so J is like "great, we will be here all night", but the kiddies doctor is separate to the others so it didn't affect us at all) and the doctors gave us some of those capsual looking things that you shove up the butt to bring your temperature down (I had never seen them before, mum was v. surprised when I told her about them too) and sent us on our way.

The butt-thing worked, and K's temperature was down to about 37.7 the monday morning. We had to cancel our proposed trip to Kamakura with H to see the azaleas. turned out for the best as it rained Monday afternoon anyway! K was pretty much back to normal from by Monday night, temperature not much higher than 37.2. By Tuesday morning, it was already in the 36-es, but we stayed home from playgroup just in case. Tuesday night in the bath, I noticed that her back was red, and looked like a heat rash all over her back. After she went to bed, I checked the internet, fearing chicken pox, but the rash didn't look like the pictures. Wednesday morning the rash was on her chest too, so we consulted our friend the internet again for a local kiddies doctor (I always get pediatrician and podiatrist mixed up, so call them a kiddies doctor to avoid my own confusion). The closest doctor actually got the best write up on the Benesse site, so we went there, a 10 min walk away, and K was diagnosed with Roseola,（突発) I skyped mum to tell her:

Me: The doctor says K has Roseola
Mum: never heard of it
Me: It is a type of herpes
Mum: HERPES!!?!?!? How did she get that? I thought that was a, you know, uuuh,
Me: a what?
Mum: a, uh, a, uh, transmitted disease
Me: you mean sexually transmitted disease
Mum: uh, yeaaaaaaah.

I had to laugh!
Apparently Roseola is very common, and babies get it sometime between 6months and 2yo. K got an atypical case, with only one day of high fever - usually the fever last 3 days!! The rash is not itchy or sore or anything, but she did have a red red throat, so the doc gave us some nice smelly syrup to take and that is it! Hope the spots/rash will be gone in the next few days.

only day 2?

Tsuyu officially started yesterday in the Kanto region. I am sick of it already.

This year I think I am going to get meself a pair of dem flash wellies coz I am sick of having wet feet and wet socks. Reminds me of when I was at high school - the walk from the train station to our school was alongside one of the main roads in Brisbane. All the cars seemed to take much pleasure in driving through the puddles and splashing the water all over us. There always used to be a line up to the toilets when we got to school - with everyone trying to dry off under the hand driers!! Of course, fold-up umbrellas might have caused some of the damage. At least in Japan they like their umbrellas big. I understand why. A quick walk with R tonight, and neither me nor K in the ergo got even the slightest bit wet (it was only spitting though). Poor R was sopping though... coz she is so close to the ground, her belly gets wets, lol!!

These would be the ULTIMATE wellies: I am usually not a fan of brand names, but I love Paul Smith!! My PS purse is my most prized posession. Alas, I think I would have to have water-on-the-brain (perhaps from too much rain?) to pay $195 for a pair of wellies, so I guess I will have to search for a bad imitation instead.

dubbed

I never used to watch tv shows from home, coz I always had a cheapie tv that was monolingual. But J's tv is bilingual, so I can get the shows like "Full House" and the midday movie in English (and sometimes French for the midday movie, lol!) - we don't have cable or bs or whatever, only the regular tv channels.

But I have recently been watching a show that is from Australia - it is on Monday nights on NHK Educational (Channel 3) and it is called 気分はぐるぐる. ... (I don't even know what it is called in English), and it's about a primary school student called Taylor and her life. I love it! It's just a kids show, but I am soooo addicted, maybe because it is set on the gold coast? It reminds me a bit of shows like "Paradise Beach" and another one called "Ocean something" - all the lesser known cousins of shows like "Neighbours" and "Home and Away" (Aussie TV's greatest productions, lol!)

Anyway, tonight I was gonna take R for a quick walk before the rain hit, but it was already 10mins before my show was supposed to start, so what to do??? then I had a brain wave - I could record it on the hdd!! (It was a brainwave, coz I haven't used the hdd recorded for months!!) So I hit record and merrily went off on our walk. R was happy, K was happy (in the ergo) and I was happy thinking I could watch my show when I came home. BUT (and there is always a but) I forgot that the hdd ISN'T bilingual -------so I had just taped my favourite show dubbed in bloody Japanese.aarrrrgh. I watched it anyway, and got what they were saying, but it just wasn't the same. I think it might be the ridiculously whiny voices they seem to want to use for dubbing? That and the fact that all the voices sound the same on all the programs, so the main character sounded just like Joey from Full House (lol!!)

It's a bit like when I once tried to read a Marion Keyes book translated into Japanese! I hadn't read that exact book in English, but I had read others of hers, so it was sorta interesting to read the Japanese translation, as I could so guess what the original English sentence would have been!! lol. But I only got about a third of the way through it then thought, it would be much more interesting to read in English! So now when I feel like reading in Japanese (uh, not very often) I chose a book that was written in Japanese to start with. I found some of the murder mysteries pretty easy to read and interesting - can't remember the name of one author I read a few of as they were an easy read.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I will be sure to stay home at 7pm next Monday night to watch the next episode, IN ENGLISH.

* Just found the name of the show - it's MORTIFIED (it's also written in small print on the nhk site, I see)