Northworst

The following story will make the cheapskates among you gnash your teeth, and feel my pain.

Our Northwest Airlines flight from Tokyo/Narita to San Francisco was overbooked. The kids and I had been assigned seats in different rows, and the gate agents said there was nothing they could do about it.

But then a wondrous thing happened -- they asked for volunteers to give up their seats, in exchange for business class seats via Honolulu, arriving about eight hours later, and a $500 travel voucher good for one year. So for four of us, that meant $2,000 worth of vouchers -- I practically threw our boarding passes at the gate agent. I believe I was the first person to volunteer.

So for about half an hour, we were on cloud nine, sitting off to the side with the other volunteers.

But then an agent walked to us, said that due to cancellations, there was room for four more people on the plane, and said they didn`t need our family to give up our seats after all.

"We will still compensate you," she said. "And we`ve moved your seats so you`re all together now."

That`s when I should have pitched a fit, insisted that we were the first people to give up our seats, and said we were going business class. I should at least have insisted on the same compensation the other volunteers were getting.

I`m sure if I`d been alone, I would not be typing this now. But I hate to make scenes in front of my kids. So instead, like a polite, trusting idiot, I just stood there, blinking, as new boarding passes were pressed into our hands. The plane was leaving -- we were being shooed aboard.

Our seats were still not together -- Daughter was across the aisle and Big Son was in front of her.

And our compensation?

FREE DRINK TICKETS.

Yes -- I cried.

Homeward Bound? Outward Bound?

We leave Tokyo tomorrow, and head back to SF. I have so much to blog about, once I get back...and lots and lots of blog reading on which I need to catch up.

I don`t want to leave. Watching the kids say goodbye to their friends again really broke my heart.

Oh, well.

Our "other" life awaits, with all our great new SF friends and our pretty rented house.

And I know Hub misses us, because he called me and said, "The guinea pigs are kind of cute, aren`t they?"

Only the loneliest kind of man can open his heart to what he formerly viewed as rats.

Blown Away by a Blast from the Past

We just had a very Japanese experience: a very old man slapped Big Son on the train today.

He had white hair and bushy white eyebrows, and a droopy, scowling face. He was wearing an old-fashioned brown pin-striped suit and a tie with a tie clip. He himself was sitting with his legs spread wide apart, taking up more than his allotted room, and taking up even more with the specialized stock market newspapers he was reading -- Nihon Shoken Shimbun and Kabushiki Shimbun.

Big Son was sitting next to him, concentrating on his Gameboy. He had the sound turned off, and everything was fine for a few stops, but then Big Son (who often forgets how big and gangly he`s getting now that he`s not a little kid anymore) crossed his legs, placing one foot on the other knee, and accidentally brushed the old man`s leg with the bottom of his flip-flop.

WHAP! The old man slapped Big Son`s bare offending calf, quite hard. The man didn`t even look up -- he just shuffled his newspapers and grumbled as he did it.

Big Son bolted up and came over to where I was standing nearby.

"You shouldn`t have stuck your foot up like that, and you should have said you were sorry," I said. "You should apologize to him."

"I don`t want to bother him again! Isn`t getting up and moving away from him good enough?"

"Well, okay. He shouldn`t have hit you -- he should have just gotten angry at you without hitting you. But he`s very old, and old people have different ideas sometimes because they were raised in a different time."

Seven years ago, when Big Son was four, we were in a Starbucks in our old neighborhood, and he ran away from me and crashed into a very old woman in a kimono, causing her to spill her coffee (fortunately, not on her kimono). She swatted his bottom with her bag. I imagine that in most circumstances, if someone were to hit my children, my first thought would be to get them as far away from the person as possible.

But very old people are different -- especially very old Japanese people. I remember I apologized to the old woman, and bought her another cup of coffee. If the people look over 70, I am inclined to cut their generation some slack. They were the ones who survived the war, buried the dead, and worked hard to drag their country back up from the ashes -- they`re entitled to be a little harsh.

Tonight, we all got off the train at the last stop, Yoyogi-uehara. I noticed the old man was unsteady on his feet as he crossed the platform to wait for the Odakyu line, to take him further out to the 'burbs. His back was hunched under his brown striped suit. The other passengers, who had seen him slap Big Son`s leg, gave him a wide berth.

I told my friend`s Japanese husband about the old man.

"Japan used to be full of old men like that. If they saw a kid misbehaving, they thought it was their responsibility to step in and fix it. Kids used to behave better, because they knew strangers like that would get mad at them," he said.

It is true that there are many ill-mannered young people, in both Japan and the U.S., but I`m actually relieved that the Japanese custom of random strangers doling out physical discipline appears to be dying out. But even so, Big Son learned a good lesson today: be careful not to do something rude, even inadvertently, or else the offended party might do something surprising and even more invasive.

What would I do, if a careless kid brushed me with his foot?

I certainly wouldn`t hit him -- I`d probably just say, "GET YOUR $#%! FILTHY FOOT OUT OF MY FACE! DIDN`T YOUR MOTHER TEACH YOU ANY MANNERS?!?"

Oh, I can`t wait to be an obnoxious old lady on a train someday, and do my part.

How to Know When You Might Have Overstayed Your Welcome

Upon returning to my friends` house where we're staying, Little Son asked me, "Mama, do we live here now?"

That Ol' Language Thing

I`m staying with a friend who has a cook. Lovely food is placed in front of me at regular intervals.

I could get very used to this.

Anyway, this post isn`t about the wonderful food, but about what another of my friends said last week while she was over here eating it.

This particular friend is British, and said, "I`m just going to step out into your garden and have a fag."

My friend hosting the party and I looked at each other. We knew what she meant, but in America, a fag is something entirely different. A woman would not have one, in a garden or anywhere else.

Yesterday, I was at this British friend`s house, and my nose was dripping. "Let me get you some bog roll!" she said, and I was relieved when she appeared with a roll of toilet paper and not some strips of tree bark or swamp matter.

I told her we Americans were all amused by her fag comment, and she was incredulous. "You mean you don`t call them fags?"

I also told her she was the only human I had ever met who used the exclamation, "Blimey!" just like a character in a book.

"Do I really say that?" she asked.

"You say it about once a month," confirmed one of her young sons.

"You also say, 'Bloody Hell!'" said her other son.

"Don`t you ever say that! It`s very rude" she told him.

I assured him that when he grows up, he can go to America and say it all he wants, and nobody would think he was rude.

That is, as long as he doesn`t leave any fag butts in our gardens.

Proof That the Friend with Whom We`re Now Staying Reads my Blog

"Since you beat rats to death with a shovel, would you please come here and kill a spider for me?"

Um...sure. Guess I can`t refuse, when she puts it that way....

Home

This was supposed to be a trip for the kids, to assure them that the life we left behind last year is still here, waiting for us all to return and resume living it. I wasn`t quite prepared to arrive in Tokyo and feel that vise-like feeling of nostalgia constrict my every breath (or maybe it`s just the air pollution -- one of the few things I didn`t miss about this city).

I know my kids think of Tokyo as home, but I wasn`t fully aware of the extent to which I do, too, until I left for a while and came back here.

We`re staying with an old college friend of mine, in a big expat house in the posh 'burb of Yoyogi-Uehara, but almost every day, we troop off to the jidokan, the public kids' recreation center in our old, shabbier neighborhood of Higashi-Azabu (not to be confused with Nishi-Azabu, Moto-Azabu, Minami-Azabu or Azabu-Jyuban ---- Higashi-Azabu sounds as if it should be one of the trendy, high-class enclaves but it`s definitely the working-class cousin of the Azabu neighborhoods). We rented a tiny apartment there for six years, and then bought a place nearby, shortly before we moved to San Francisco.

For the first five years of our stint in Tokyo, I was a financial wire reporter. I wasn`t particularly good at my job -- my Japanese was too slow to handle the high profile press conferences, which entailed sending headlines almost simultaneously. So I did mostly economic indicators, earnings reports and market coverage.

During those years, the economic news was mostly grim, and my life was mostly grim, too. I probably wasn`t as bad at my job as I thought I was, but I had myself convinced I was always on the verge of getting fired. I was afraid to spend large sums of money, because I expected to be out of a job at any moment. I lived in such a perpetual state of anxiety that it became the norm: batten down the hatches and brace myself for the impending cloud of doom.

Our old neighborhood cannot be called attractive. It has a few pretty parks, but the whole area was bombed flat in World War II, and many of the smaller buildings date from soon after that, when Japan was a war-devastated nation struggling to get back on its feet. There is a small shotengai, or shopping street, that has been dying a slow death since its movie theatres and public bath closed a few decades ago. A few of the oldest shopkeepers even remember the bombing raids, though many of the elementary school-aged children at the time were sent to the countryside to escape them.

I remember how cold the winters seemed in that neighborhood. The sky was always grey -- it always seemed to be cloudy and drizzling freezing rain. We lived there consecutively, so I should have equally vivid memories of summers, too, and some sunny days, but oddly, when I recall those years, it`s the winters I will never forget.

Because my job was stressful and my surroundings dismal, my daily moments of pure happiness stood out like bursts of brilliant light and color. Everyday, I came home from my job to my two preschool children. I took baths with them, and then read them English books as we all huddled under the quilts in our futons. On the weekends, all of us would go out for noodles at our favorite local restaurant. The kindly old shopkeepers would give my children treats, and include us in all the neighborhood festivals. Then Little Son was born, and I carried him everywhere when we went out.

It has been great for the kids to see these places and people again, but it`s me who has the tears welling up in my eyes whenever Big Son and Daughter pull me into their favorite used bookstore, or greet the old shoemaker and vegetable stand lady. I realize that unlike me, my kids took it for granted that our old life was still here, whereas I know how quickly things can change. Old shopkeepers die, old buildings are torn down and gleaming towers are erected in their place, and cuddly preschoolers soon grow into big kids who would rather play with their Gameboys than read books in bed with their mother.

I watch them playing with their friends at the jidokan, as if they`d never left, and I know that these years, too, will be over soon. When we return here to live again someday, Big Son will be ready to start high school -- his childhood will be all but gone. He doesn`t quite comprehend this.

And I, for one, am not going to try to explain it to him. He`ll find out soon enough.

LIVE! from KYOTO!

This post is brought to you by my friend Ritsuko, who served me and the kids a delicious dinner of gyudon and somen, and then offered me the use of her computer.

I thought our visit to the in-laws was off to a good start when Hub`s mother hugged me, for the first time in the two decades I`ve known her. I have hugged her a few times over the years, and she would always hug back, though I could tell it was not a natural gesture on her part. But this time, when I walked in the door, exhausted from our long trip, it was definitely a one-sided hug. She hugged me.

And then the next morning, thanks to jet lag, I woke up in time to help her with the laundry. In fact, I woke up at 5:00 am expecting not to see her for a while, but it turns out she wakes up at 4:00, when it begins to get light in the summer. The woman only needs six hours of sleep.

The biggest break-through, though, was that she allowed me to help her with the dinner dishes. Until now, she`s let me do the lunch and breakfast dishes, but when it came to dinner, she would physically chase me out of her kitchen.

That sounds drastic, but remember, Kyoto people often say the opposite of what they mean, so whenever she said, "I don`t want you help me," I had to make sure that she didn`t mean, "I want you to help me," so I would pick up a dish sponge, and she would pry it out of my hand. This time, though, there was no wrestling -- she let me help her.

I wonder, is it because her other son is newly married, which means she has another daughter-in-law now, making me the number one daughter-in-law? Or is she just mellowing with age?

I would say that it has been a great visit so far, if one unfortunate thing hadn`t happened on our first morning here. I was eating breakfast, and the kitchen chair crumpled under me. One of the legs just cracked off.

It was actually the second time one of their old chairs broke under my weight, but the last time it happened, I was heavily pregnant, so no one teasted me about it. This time, though, I`m not pregnant -- I`m just, um...not exactly at my thinnest right now, to say the least, and so I know I will never hear the end of this.

"Mama broke the chair! Mama broke the chair!" The big kids loved it -- it was as good as something on TV.

"I can`t believe you did that," said Hub. Then he added, "Are you going to write about it on your blog?"

Well, of course.

I`ve only gained maybe ten pounds since the last time my in-laws saw me, since I put on most of my extra weight in the six months before we left Japan. But they keep referring to how thin I was two years ago -- perhaps to encourage me to get back down to that weight? I would like to think so, and will give them the benefit of the doubt.

They keep using a very unfortunate word, though. In Japanese, if you want to call someone "slim," you usually say they`re "smart." This Japanese-English word comes from the meaning of "smart" that connotes a good appearance (e.g., smartly dressed).

So what my in-laws actually keep saying to me is, "You used to be so smart." I know exactly what they mean, but still, the word is jarring every time I hear it. Yeah, I used to be so smart, but then I got very stupid -- my brain cells shrunk in inverse proportion to my ass.

I don`t want to tie up Ritsuko`s computer anymore (especially since she appears to have washed all the dinner dishes while I typed the above words), so I will close with a story from the Sanjo Shotengai. That`s the shopping street that is within walking distance of Hub`s house, and yet just far enough away so that none of the people there are neighbors. No one knew Hub when he was growing up, so when I walk there, no one points at me and whispers, "There`s the foreigner who married Hub`s family`s oldest son!"

I was buying some flowers for my mother-in-law, figuring I would do all I could to stay in her good graces. I asked for two stems of white lilies and four red roses, and then asked the shopkeeper if white lilies had any particular meaning in Japan. White chysanthemums, for example, are only for funerals, or offerings to the dead, and I didn`t want to make a mistake like that.

"No, lilies are fine -- but you can`t give her four roses. Better make it three -- four is a bad number," he said.

I had completely forgotten that the word for "four," "shi," is pronounced exactly the same as the word that means "death," so four is considered an unlucky, inauspicious number. I was grateful to the shopkeeper for reminding me of this, even though it meant my buying one less rose.

And I am also grateful because now I have the perfect answer for Hub, if he starts talking about wanting another baby.

"Four is a bad number," I`ll say. "We`d better stick to three."

See, the more time I spend in Japan, the more I think of ways to use Hub`s own culture against him.

Now, if only they made stronger chairs....

(UPDATED to add Ritsuko's observation that thanks to me, my in-laws no longer have an inauspicious number of kitchen chairs. I will definitely point that out to Hub, the next time he gives me any shit for it.)

Toenail Karma (UPDATED...)

I`m sorry, but the post below is too weird and gloomy to be on the top of my blog -- especially if I don`t have time to post again before we leave, and it`s up there for a week or so.

So allow me to indulge in something frivolous. Remember how I rationalized the enormous sum I paid to have our used guinea pigs inspected, and get them pedicures, by vowing to forgo toenail work myself?

Well, Tim`s foot, though greatly improved, is still a little bit nasty looking, even though he finished his course of antibiotics. The person who will be taking care of our house and animals while we`re gone is a nurse, who doesn`t mind giving a little piggy a dropper of medicine twice a day.

So I called the vet, who just as a precaution, agreed to refill his prescription. Even though I have a gadzillion things to do before we leave, I drove all the way downtown to pick it up.

The medicine cost almost exactly the same as a human pedicure, plus tip -- so to reward myself for so responsibly maintaining our companion animal, I went and had my own piggies done. I rationalized that it had been over a year since I got a pedicure, and my feet were beginning to look like GUY feet.

But my real cosmic reward came right after my pedicure. I went to the Goodwill store in West Portal, and found a really cool Dolce & Gabbana greyish tee-shirt in brand new condition that fits me perfectly -- for $10.99.

So off I go to Japan, with my new shirt and my bright red toenails. Look out, world -- here comes a nicely-groomed middle-aged woman, with an attitude.

Stay well, all of you. I`ll be back before you know it.

(UPDATED to say that I just heard from a friend that Shiba Pool, our favorite cheap public swimming place in Tokyo, is closed for renovations. Our favorite fantastic 1960's playground with its enormous crazy slide at Takaragaike Koen in Kyoto is also closed for renovations. Perhaps this is a cosmic signal that we need to....renovate?

P.S. What does it mean when you bump into friends in church, expecting them to notice your new radically shorter haircut that you worry shows off all of your facial fat....and the only compliments they give you are on your nice pedicure? Either I`m right about the unflattering haircut, or my feet look truly impressive. Oh well....it will grow back....both toenails and hair....)

Live Ammunition

Every so often, I realize we live in a country with very lax gun control, compared to Japan.

Last night, I watched as Big Son arranged some objects next to his pillow before he went to sleep: his wristwatch, His GameBoy DS, a Doreamon comic book, and.....OHMYGOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT???

"Awww, Mama, I knew you`d take it away! You always take my good stuff away!"

At first I thought it was a spent shell casing, but when I picked it up, I realized it was a live bullet.

"You`re going to take it away, aren`t you?"

"Why do you have this?"

"Because it looks so cool!"

"Well, it`s dangerous -- do you know what it is?"

He hestitated.

"I don`t know. I found it in the street, outside our house. It looks like a missile."

"It can explode, so we have to get rid of it. Okay?" (And my OKAY was definitely an "Okay, are you clear?"" and not an "Is it okay if I take this away?" OKAY.)

He sighed. "Okaaaaaay. I don`t want it to explode in my bed!"

I showed it to our next door neighbor this morning. He`s a hunter, and offered to dispose of it safely. He offered to call the police, too -- he said he thought it was worth reporting it to the non-emergency number.

I don`t think my kids will be finding anything like that on our Japan trip.

Over the next few weeks, we will be more concerned about North Korea`s huge, badly-aimed missiles, than finding any little ones on the sidewalk.

Sorry, I Have to Rant.....

Someone named Dana Garcia in Berkeley wrote the following letter to the San Francisco Chronicle:

Editor -- The devaluation of citizenship is certainly evident in "Tears, smiles mark path to citizenship" (Fourth of July). Once a deeply meaningful institution, it has become seriously diminished by immigration and globalization. The Indian couple were not embarrassed in the least to say that American citizenship is merely a convenience to them because they remain loyal to India.
Dual-citizenship is a fashionable corruption that prevents patriotic assimilation and should be ended immediately. It is the national equivalent of polygamy, and just as odious.
-----------------------

Wow! I feel so cutting-edge, to have my children compared to polygamists!

Our kids are dual citizens of Hub`s country and mine. Hub is employed by his country`s government, and our permanent home is in in his country, though we are now living in the U.S. on his temporary assignment. We were under the impression that we were taking the best action possible in our circumstances, to raise our children to be bi-lingual, bi-cultural, bi-national members of the large global community, with all the responsibilities that come with this.

But I should thank this Dana Garcia, for pointing out that, "dual-citizenship is a fashionable corruption that prevents patriotic assimilation and should be ended immediately. It is the national equivalent of polygamy, and just as odious."

Just off the top of my head, I can name thousands of things I think are more "odious" than having passports and patriotism for more than one country. People like Garcia make the already challenging situation of families like mine even harder.

I think I`ll send that, in a letter to the Chron. But I can`t send this part, so I`ll just say it here:

Dana Garcia, whoever you are -- go stick an American flag up your ass.

Sleeping With the Enemy

I told Hub about my weight angst, described in my post below.

"So did your doctor tell you to need to lose those 50 pounds?"

No, she did not, I truthfully told him. My blood pressure is 120/70, my cholestrol is low, and I exercise a lot. My doctor only suggested I start swimming, which would be easier on my aging joints than running.

Besides, the 50-pound figure is Hub`s, not mine. It`s what I would have to lose to get back to what I weighed when he first met me, when I was a skinny 19-year old. I wouldn`t mind losing some weight, especially in a few strategic places, but if I lost as much as 50 pounds at this point in my life, I`d look scary. My face would pucker like a Sharpei`s, for one thing.

I told a friend of mine about Hub`s views on my weight. She said her own long-term partner has never, ever once suggested to her to lose weight, not even when she was at her very-not-svelte peak.

"Whenever I ask him how I look, he always says I look wonderful," she said.

I relayed what she said to Hub.

"Why can`t you be more like that?" I asked him.

"Sorry, I`m honest. And are you sure her boyfriend wasn`t being sarcastic?"

Asshole.

The ironic part is, Hub is a native of Kyoto. Kyoto people are known for never stating anything directly -- or even saying the very opposite of what they mean.

"Welcome! Come on in!" they say, when they want you to go away.

"Isn`t this nice," they say, when they hate something.

"Would you like some soup?" they offer, when they want you to leave.

"Please marry our eldest son," they say, and it took me years to realize they meant, "Get lost, white girl!"

No, just kidding about that last one, but you get the idea.

"Since you`re from Kyoto," I said to Hub, "when you tell me I need to lose 50 pounds, what you really mean is that I need to GAIN 50 pounds. Pass the cheesecake, please."

He sighed, and looked as if I had hit him.

Hee hee.

A Quickie

Okay, after posting a record THREE LOOOOONG posts yesterday, I will try to keep today`s post brief.

Lately, everyone`s been telling me I look as if I lost some weight -- in fact, if I had a dime for everytime someone said that, I would have made far, far more than I`ve made from Google ad c*l*i*c*k*s. According to our bathroom scale, I have lost a whopping two pounds. Not a huge amount, but heading in the right direction.

But at the end of last week, I went to see my doctor, and according to her scale, I have GAINED EIGHT pounds, since I last saw her in October.

So instead of praise, I got all the, "What foods are you eating? Are you really exercising?" questions.

Damn %$#! piece of shit Ikea scale....

Oh, and one more thing.....Kyoto

I won`t be able to post for at least the first part of our upcoming Japan trip, because I won`t be bringing my laptop, and my in-laws (gasp!) don`t have a computer.

The reason I`m not bringing the laptop after all, even though I bought it specifically with this trip in mind, is that Hub waited so long to book our tickets that the boys and I were unable to get a connecting flight from Narita to Osaka. This means we'll be taking the train in to Tokyo, where we`ll board the shinkansen (bullet train) for Kyoto.

It`s not such a bad trip, from Tokyo to Kyoto -- less than three hours -- but after a trans-Pacific flight, with a four-year old in tow, I`m really not looking forward to it. I will certainly be a sleep-deprived zombie, and minimizing my luggage is key to making all the transfers without leaving my little boy behind. (My older boy, god bless him, is big enough to carry several times his weight in luggage. Or at least he will if I threaten him enough, and perhaps even poke him repeatedly with a sharp stick. Whatever it takes.)

I have to stay awake and pay attention on the shinkansen, because it does make several stops before Kyoto. I have no desire to repeat a heart-stopping moment when Daughter was about two years old, and we were on our way Kyoto, and she jumped out of her seat, darted between passengers` legs, and GOT OFF THE TRAIN IN NAGOYA BY HERSELF.

Of course, I was in hot pursuit and managed to grab her and pull her back on, but I had somewhat more trouble moving through the crowd of other passengers. What if the doors had closed, and the train had sped away, leaving my toddler on the platform? Oh god -- we would have made the national news.... "Foreign Mother Lets Baby Disembark Without Her!" (...shudder...)

Going to Kyoto is always like entering a time warp.

For one thing, Hub`s ancestral home is very Meiji, and the people in it didn`t advance much farther.

When I first started dating Hub, in 1985, his mother told me the house was "about 75 years old." Hub`s grandfather built it himself, out of scrap lumber, but he appears to have gotten hold of some pretty good "scrap," because the beams and pillars are quite thick.

Hub`s mother now says the house is "about 80 years old," meaning the house has only aged five years in the last 20. Obviously, no one has any idea how old it really is. I`m sure it`s recorded somewhere, if anyone ever bothers to look it up, but as far as I know, no one has.

The best thing about the house is that it`s right in the geographical center of Kyoto, if you look at a map: near the Senbon/Marutamachi intersection. There`s lots of great places within walking distance, and there`s even better places within a short bus/subway ride.

My mother-in-law was the youngest of six siblings, and my father-in-law was the youngest of seven. This means both of them, who are now around 70, are the products of traditional pre-war Japanese families, with traditional family values. These can be summed up as, "Fathers and sons are great, and mothers and daughters get to take care of them."

Every morning, my mother-in-law rises at 6:00 am, does the laundry, and hangs in out in the yard to dry. She has a dryer -- in fact, we gave her the dryer -- but like most Japanese people, she prefers to save on her utility bill and let the air dry it. (Some people insist that laundry dried outside in fresh, clean air smells better, and as soon as I live in a Japanese city with fresh, clean air, I will let you know if this is true.)

She always instructs us to leave our dirty clothes in a pile by the back door. I tell her I prefer to do our own laundry myself later, but she`s always adamant that I not interfere with her laundry routine. So I leave our clothes in her pile.

Do I wake up at 6:00? No, of course not -- I sleep until 7:30 or 8:00, with Hub and the kids. This is always a point of contention between Hub and myself.

"Why don`t you wake up at 6:00 and do the laundry with my mother?"

"Why don`t you?"

"Because she won`t let me!"

Alas, this is true. If Hub attempts to wash a dish or vacuum, she physically wrests it out of his hands. Whenever she saw him change a diaper -- particularly if I happened to be sitting in the same room, watching TV or reading -- her face would crumple into a scowl.

The compromise is, I usually manage to wake up and do laundry with her once or twice, but I sleep in the rest of the time. I keep repeating to her my offer to do our laundry a few hours later in the morning, and she keeps refusing. This routine is now in its fifteenth year, and is unlikely to change any time soon.

My mother-in-law is not an unkind woman, but she`s a product of a different culture and a different era. She didn`t get to go to college as she`d wanted, she entered an arranged marriage and moved into her in-law`s house, and she raised three kids with no household help from Hub`s father. She then she cared for her own elderly, bedridden mother-in-law for eight years, feeding her, bathing her, changing her diapers, until she died at the age of 90.

And now that my mother-in-law is getting older herself, she can`t retire -- she still has to take care of Hub`s father.

Let me tell you a little story about my father-in-law. He`s really a generous, good-natured guy, with a heart of gold, but he, too, is a product of a different culture and a different era.

Once, when I was visiting Kyoto, he sat down at the kitchen table and asked me to please make him a cup of instant coffee.

He asked me very nicely, so I didn`t act on my first instinct, which was, of course, to ask him why he couldn`t make it himself.

"How many lumps of sugar do you want in it?" I asked him.

He had no idea. He went to ask my mother-in-law.

Whenever I start to complain about Hub doing less around the house than I do, I have to remind myself -- he`s come a long, long way from the house in which he was raised.

Anyway, when we get to Tokyo, I should be able to scrouge up a computer somewhere, and hopefully, I`ll be able to post. I`m sure I`ll have plenty of in-law stories, as always. We`ll be back in SF on July 31.

(Will any bloggers in Japan be in Kyoto next week, or in central Tokyo the two weeks after that? If so -- leave a comment with your email, and maybe we can meet for coffee.)

Takin` Care of Bloggy Business (Updated)

First of all, I believe I have updated my blogroll. If you care, please check the link in the side bar to make sure you`re there, and that your link works. I aim to please! Blogs are arranged alphabetically, within chronological clumps, to create a visual representation of the times I updated my blogroll -- like rings on a tree. I enjoy doing it this way, and I`m sorry if anyone finds it confusing.

I have never purposely dropped any bloggers from my blogroll unless they discontinued their blogs. (Hey, the Ockers` blog appears to be defunct -- anyone know where they went?) However, a few months ago, when I moved my massive roll to a separate page, which required cutting and pasting blocks of ponderous code, I did inadvertently drop some folks by accident and not notice. I think I put everyone back -- if not, please let me know.

Anyone else want to be added? Please comment and let me know.

I have no blogroll rules, but I suppose I should make some.

If you ask me to add you, and then either don`t add me, or add me and drop me, I will probably drop you, too. Of course, my blogroll is by no means consistently reciprocal -- I have lots of famous bloggers there who will probably never bother to read my blog, let alone add me to their blogrolls -- so this rule will only apply to the few people who ask. Courtesy is courtesy -- I don`t give a flying fuck about my Technorati rating, but why should I boost yours?

I also reserve the right to refuse to link any blog with contents I find objectionable, for any reason. But that goes without saying.

I have a "Point of View Blogs" section, where I blogroll blogs with a clear bias, theme or stated agenda. There is a very fine line between some of these blogs and regular personal blogs, and my disctinction isn`t always very scientific. For example, The Happy Feminist could go in that category, but she posts about her life and her job and her corgi, so I`ve kept her out of it so far. Twisty Faster`s and Dawn Eden`s blogs also have personal content, but both of them have very clear messages ("Fuck the patriarchy!" and "Don`t fuck at all," respectively), so they`re both in it.

Moving right along to.... ads! I`ve joined the Japanblog Ad Network, so Tertia`s Blogad promo should be disappearing shortly. In fact, it was only supposed to be there for a week, but it sort of got stuck, and I got used to looking at it and didn`t mind -- but Tertia herself is getting tired of seeing it there.

Oh, one more thing -- anyone have any experience with BzzAgent, besides Andie D. (upon whose site I first learned of them, for bloggers)?

I love the idea of getting free stuff -- I`m the kind of person who saves proof-of-purchase symbols, and mails them in for free potato chips/coffee mugs/recipe books, etc. The idea seems to be that BzzAgent sends you free stuff and you review the products on your blog.

I have no qualms about doing this, from an editorial point of view. I would be able to clearly label such posts as product reviews, and would not have to be sneaky and sleazey, and slip them in as product placements. I would never do anything like that.*
*Unless working a pro-Red Sox message into a foreign exchange market report counts.

(UPDATED, to add, as per my comment, that I realize BzzAgent used to keep their agents "secret," and ask them not to disclose that they were getting free stuff in exchange for promoting the products. That seems rather nefarious, and I would never consider signing up with a company with that policy.)

But how honest can I be? I mean, I am a grumpy, complaining person, and if I don`t say nice things, will the BzzAgent people kill my children? And would they care if I reviewed their products in the same post as one discussing my backyard rodent control measures, or my guinea pig`s anus? If so, I would like to head off potential problems by not signing up in the first place.

Anyone know?

I Have a Guinea Pig Dilemma, But Do Not Read This Post While Eating, Unless You`re Not Easily Grossed Out

I promise, this will be my last post about the guinea pigs for a while. I seem to have lost two-thirds of my readers since I started blogging about them. My readers greatly preferred my account of beating my garden rodents to death with a shovel. I made more in Google ad c*l*i*c*k*s that week than I`ve ever made since.

As I`ve said, the guinea pigs` former owner was lining their cage with nothing but old newspapers -- putting the San Francisco Chronicle to good use. While the Chron is printed with soy-based ink and is supposedly nontoxic and biodegradable, it`s not the most absorbent cage liner, and this likely contributed to Tim`s foot infection.

Their former owner gave me a huge bag of pine shavings when he gave the pigs to me. However, our vet recommended we switch to CareFresh, a paper-pulp product that`s easier on their little piggy feet. I`d heard of it before, because it`s what Andie D. uses for her hamster.

But Tim started eating the CareFresh, and I realized he couldn`t quite digest and expel it properly. I had to, um.........pull it out of his ass, after I noticed he`d stopped eating. Not wanting to make a habit of pulling stuff out of my guinea pig`s ass, I switched back to the pine shavings. But now he`s nibbling on the pine shavings, too, and I`m a bit worried about them getting stuck. I Googled this subject, and found that it`s a common problem with older, un-neutered boar guinea pigs.

Oddly, it doesn`t bother me at all to touch a guinea pig`s anus. However, I think doing the same for a human would be utterly revolting. Eeeeeyuck! I hate to even imagine it! In fact, I think even my own babies` poop diapers seemed much grosser than anything a lesser animal could produce. This undoubtedly explains why I wanted to be a veterinarian as a little girl, and never had any inkling of interest in being a human doctor. My fellow humans gross me out, whereas other animals do not. (Alas, I developed a pretty severe fur/dander allergy with the onset of puberty, and I became a financial journalist instead. So I didn`t have to touch any species` asses, although I sure had to deal with more than my share of crap.)

Anyway, the problem is, someone else will be living in our house and caring for our guinea pigs next week, while we`re all in Japan, and then Hub will be caring for them for two weeks until the kids and I get back.

Poor Hub is very apprehensive about going anywhere near "those rats." I can`t imagine the look on his face if I had to ask him, "Can you please pick up Tim and flip him over, and see if you need to pull out anything that`s stuck in his ass?"

I think I have to resign myself to the possibility that if Tim is unlucky enough to develop this problem while under Hub`s care, it might kill him. Tim, I mean -- not Hub.

If given a choice, I have no doubt that Hub would prefer to dispose of a dead guinea pig carcass than touch a living guinea pig`s anus, all things considered.

I am going to publish this post now, against my better judgment. I`m sorry if I grossed anyone out. How many readers are left? Two? Three? Damn....

How about if I promise to kill Tim with a shovel? Would you all come back? Pleeeeeeease?

Sorry, I have to try something....

Not Quite On the Same Page

Hub was drinking his coffee this morning and said to be, "It`s so great that we have three!"

"Huh? I thought you didn`t even like the guinea pigs."

He put down his cup and looked at me.

"I meant it`s so great we have three children."

Oops...

Hey, I`m the one who feeds and takes care of all the living things in this house, so it`s all the same to me. Well, except I can`t put the kids in cages in the garage....

Red Flag

Our next-door neighbors are flying the Canadian flag today. (Happy Canada Day!) No, it`s not an anti-American protest -- the wife really is from Canada.

But it gave Hub an idea.

"Let`s put up a Japanese flag for the Fourth of July!" he said.

Yeah, right. Because, you know, Japan was an integral part of American`s war for independence. Didn`t you know, all the founding fathers loved sushi? And Betsy Ross was inspired by the rising sun emblem, which is why she originally arranged the stars in a circle? And George Washington always carried his lucky samurai sword into battle? Uh-huh.

Besides, it was too late -- Hub hadn`t seen it yet, but the kids and I had already duct-taped two little American flags to the porch railings on either side of the door.

Still no reaction from him. Will he notice? If he does, will he gratify me with a response?

Oh, the suspense......