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.
Friday, 13 June 2008
silly mummy returns
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Monday, 9 June 2008
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.
Saturday, 7 June 2008
not much use now
Friday, 6 June 2008
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.....
Thursday, 5 June 2008
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.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
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.
Monday, 2 June 2008
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)
