Just a Little Venting -- I Promise, Okay?

Okay, now that I established with my previous post that my parents` visit ended on a positive note, I`d like to do a little retrospective whining about their visit. None of you mind, do you?

Okay, then. Here we go!

1) The Rice Pudding Incident

My father went to the supermarket on the second day of their visit, and bought some Kozy Shack rice pudding. "Here," he said. "I bought you this. I know you like it."

Indeed, I do. I had stopped buying it for myself, because it was going directly to my fat ass. However, how could I complain about such a wonderful gift? I thanked him, and ate the pudding.

Two days later, he was rummaging around in the fridge.

"Where`s that rice pudding? I want some!"

"I ate it," I said.

"YOU WHAT? It was a HUGE CONTAINER OF IT!"

"Yes. I ate it in three servings."

"A container like that lasts me for weeks! I thought we could share it!"

"You didn`t say so. I thought you said you bought it for me."

"I didn`t think I had to say so!"

My (overweight) mother chimed in, from the living room sofa on which she spent most of their visit reclining: "NO WONDER SHE`S GOTTEN SO BIG! SHE CAN`T CONTOL HER EATING!"

Grrrr........

2) The Zoo Incident

My parents have forgotten how quickly plans can change, to meet the needs and wants of young kids.

They`re retired. There`s just two of them -- very neat, very tidy. They plan their activities, and then carry out their plans.

Our original plan one afternoon last week was for me to take my parents and all three kids to the San Francisco Zoo. We`re members, so we have passes, and it`s not far from where we live.

But then Daughter`s friend invited her to her house, and she wanted to go. I said yes.

Then it occurred to me that Big Son needed a haircut before school started, because he looked like Cousin Itt, and I remembered that there was a Supercuts within a mile of the zoo.

So I gave our spare cell phone to my father, and said, "Here -- I`ll drop you and Mom and Little Son off at the zoo, get Big Son`s hair cut, and then join you, okay? I`ll call when we get there, to see where you are."

You would have thought I said to them, "Here -- I`m just going to drop you in San Francisco Bay and watch you swim to shore."

"This day is just SO disorganized!" said my mother.

Um, yeah. Welcome to my life, with three kids of different ages, with different interests and activities.

So I dropped them off, took Big Son to get clipped, and everything at first went as planned -- except that when I went to call my father, to let him know that I and Big Son had arrived at the zoo, my father had managed somehow to switch his phone OFF.

"Okay....We`ll just look for them," I said to Big Son.

"But it`s a huge zoo!" the sulking, shorn Big Son correctly pointed out.

Undaunted, we tried all of Little Son`s favorite haunts -- the monkeys, the penguins, the lions, the little train, the restaurant -- and finally found them at the zoo playground.

"I knew this great plan of yours would fall through," my mother said.

Grrrrr........

3) The Toilet Plunger Incident

I got home one day to find my father in more than his usual tizzy.

"Your storage room is a MESS!" he said.

He`s right. A box of papers fell over, and we haven`t picked it up yet. Hub chucks his junk in there. Plus, we just dug out our big suitcases to take to Japan with us in July, and we haven`t stacked them neatly in their corner yet.

But there`s a DOOR on the room, and I had expected it to remain CLOSED.

"Um...what were you doing in there, Dad...?"

"I was looking for a toilet plunger! Why don`t you have one? I looked everywhere!"

Everywhere.... except the upstairs bathroom, next to the toilet, where we keep it.

But at least he couldn`t complain that we were hiding it in a less-than-obvious place.

-------------------

Okay, that wasn`t so bad, was it?

Nah.....

A Little Behind

I wish that title described what my rear end looks like in a swimsuit (which alas, it currently does not), rather than just the sad fact that I`ve been away from the Internet for a couple of days.

Thank you to all the kind people who emailed me when I didn`t post, to ask if I was all right. I feel loved and wanted and am truly touched by your kindness (sniff, sniff). I don`t deserve you, really I don`t.

Everything is fine -- my parents left Sunday morning, and then Sunday afternoon, some friends of ours from Tokyo passed through San Francisco in their RV. They somehow managed to park it in our narrow, single-lane driveway, where it fit perfectly. They left the next morning, leaving me with an impressive pile of empty champagne bottles and a kitchen that would have sent my father over the edge, if he`d seen it. (Moral: Don`t drink and cook. I wasted some perfectly good ingredients, and then horror of horrors, I actually served some of the brown, oily inedible things to my guests. Fortunately, they all were drinking, too.)

My parents` visit got easier to tolerate 1) once we passed the halfway point, and 2) once I gave my father some Clorox wipes to use on the kitchen countertops, if the crumbs really bothered him so much. I don`t know why I didn`t think of that sooner.

He did say, before he left, "You know... your house isn`t really dirty... it`s just messy." I decided this was a great concession on his part, to acknowlege this.

We also had a nice family moment on Saturday, that helped me put everything in perspective.

One fact about my parents I haven`t mentioned: my mother uses a wheelchair a lot. She had very bad arthritis in her knees, and had a successful double knee replacement last year, but still prefers to ride instead of walking longer distances. Despite medical advice to exercise more, I think she`s a little afraid of wearing her new knees out. Anyway, this sometimes limits the kinds of activities she can do with the grandkids.

So on Saturday, all of us went to Japantown, to the summer Obon festival, and we were all watching the kids play the "Win-A-Goldfish" game (and we won 15 fish, who now live in our sludgy aquarium, but that`s another story).

Big Son and Little Son were fighting over a paper fan that one of them had won at another game. Little Son grabbed it, and it ripped.

"Now look what you`ve done! You broke it! Now no one wants it!" I said.

"Don`t yell at your kid!" said a strange voice.

I looked up to see who`d said that. I was surprised -- I am indeed a yeller, as I`m sure all our immediate neighbors know, but this time I hadn`t even yelled at Little Son. Sure, my voice is loud, but I had merely spoken to him crossly.

The intrusive stranger was a man about my age, with extremely close-cropped hair, wearing a vest over a tee-shirt and holding a coffee cup -- just a random middle-aged white guy. Perhaps even a yuppy-looking guy -- the kind of guy you see everywhere.

I decided he must have been kidding, and answered with a joke.

"Oh, yelling at them makes them stronger," I said.

"It does NOT! Believe me, I KNOW!" he said, obviously not joking.

"Well, my parents yelled at me," I said quietly.

"Yeah, and look at YOU!" said the guy.

It was a perfectly ridiculous thing to say to a total stranger. I simply stood there staring at him.

"I mean, now you`re yelling at your kid, too, just like your parents!" he continued.

"And I`m taking care of my parents, too," I said, and gestured at them, right next to me. I don`t think the guy had realized we were all together.

It was the first thing that came out of my mouth, but in retrospect, it was kind of an odd thing for me to say -- sure, I was taking care of my parents in the sense that I had planned and organized this little outing for us, but that`s about it. They`re still relatively young, healthy and independent, and we`re not supporting them in any financial sense. I don`t go around telling people I`m "taking care of my parents."

But my parents didn`t say anything. They knew exactly what I had meant, and so they just stood there quietly, looking at this guy, too.

Three generations of my family stood there staring down the guy: me, holding Little Son`s hand, and my father, pushing my mother`s wheelchair. We didn`t say anything. We didn`t have to. I thought, it`s really funny -- all four of us had the same disgusted expression on our faces, that look that said, "What the hell are you talking about?" without using any words.

The guy stood there for a moment, then....went away.

"What a weirdo," said my mother.

I suppose this little story proves I`m somewhat of a weirdo, too, because the intrusive stranger made me feel closer to my loud, annoying, outspoken parents than I`ve felt in a long time. It made me realize that I might not be the picture of normal, but at least I don`t give unsolicited parenting advice to total strangers on the street.

And on this, at least, my parents and I appear to be in agreement.

Well, you know what ol' Tolstoy said -- all happy families are alike, but every freaky family is freaky in its own way.

Or something like that, you know?

Actual Conversations

ME: "Dad....why are you cleaning?"

My father, as he wiped the dining room table: "Because no one else does around here!!"

Sigh.....

Our cleaning woman came on Wednesday, and for a while, the house was perfect and smelled faintly of cleaning solutions -- lavendar, honeysuckle, lemon and bleach! Nectors of the Cleaning Gods! Life was very, very good for my parents.

However, the house soon reverted to its natural state, and I allowed it to do so.

Which brings me to the next conversation, with my mother:

"Why do you allow your kids to mess up the house? Why don`t you make them clean up after themselves? They`re old enough to clean up!"

"They are, and I do ask them to do things, all the time. But I don`t mind the house getting a little messy -- I pick my battles with them."

"We always made you clean up after yourself!"

"This is true. Yes, you did."

And it took me years to get over it, after I started living with my messy spouse. I realized my choices were 1) drive Hub insane, trying to change him; 2) do all the cleaning myself, to keep everything up to my high standards; 3) compromise. Guess what I did? Nearly 20 years later, Hub is far neater than he used to be, and I no longer weep if I see a crumb. Or even lots and lots of crumbs.

Can I tell you how compulsive I used to be, when I lived in my parents` house? My room was scary. I had throw rugs with fringe on them, and it used to upset me when the fringe was all messed up. So I used to COMB it. And sometimes I`d even put HAIRSPRAY on it. And when my friends came over, I would say to them, "Please don`t step on the fringe!"

Yeah. I was a freak.

I remember at my first job, I kept my desk so neat that when I wasn`t sitting there, people used to ask my boss in a hushed voice if I`d been fired.

My parents are reminding me how far I`ve come, compared to what I used to be like.

But now, I really don`t care if my kids leave their jackets and comic books all over -- I`ll ask them to clean up when they`re done with whatever they`re doing downstairs. I`m not going to call them upstairs and demand they pick everything up right now, this instant! the way my parents used to do.

Oh, one more thing, before I forget --

They are both angry that Big Son has barely put down his GameBoy since they arrived, and I haven`t taken it away from him.

Guess what their gift to him was, after they arrived?

Yep -- the new GameBoy software he requested.

So sorry -- I`m not going to take away the new game that THEY BOUGHT HIM THEMSELVES.

Let him enjoy it, until he`s sick of it. As long as his homework is done, his free time is his own.

Okay, rant over -- back I go....

(*Let me also clarify today that I know my parents are basically good people, and they truly did the best they could, raising me and my brother, for which I am grateful. If they lived next door to you, you`d probably like them -- they`d be that eccentric older couple, always complaining about something or other, and you`d love their wry sense of humor.)

(But if they were your parents, you`d probably be a freak, too.)

Misty Water-Colored Memories

We were in the car.

From the back seat, Daughter asked me, "Mama, when you were my age, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

"A veterinarian -- an animal doctor," I said, but her grandmother`s voice drowned me out.

"A LAWYER! SHE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A LAWYER!" said my mother.

To her credit, she didn`t add the usual, "...but she let her whole life get off track."

Well, at least out loud.

Parents` Visit Scorecard

They`re heeeeeeeere! The kids are overjoyed to see them, which is great.

For those of you keeping score:

First, my mother asked me, "Why are you eating THAT?" (I was munching on some popcorn to tide me over, because we had decided on a late dinner at one of those all-you-can-eat salad bar places.)

At dinner, she asked, "Doesn't she eat ANY vegetables?" (Daughter, at the time, was eating her third bowl of rice at the restaurant. )

"Well, I guess she did eat some corn," my mother said, and we proceeded to argue about whether corn was a vegetable or a grain.

Oh, and then there was, "Don`t your kids drink any MILK?"

She was appalled because I ordered a milk for Little Son, and let the older two drink water, as they wanted.

"The older ones need milk, too! They`re still growing!"

"They need calcium, not necessarily milk," I said, but she wasn`t buying that. She used to give me and my brother glasses of milk with every meal and insist we drink them, and in her mind, this is what good mothers are supposed to do.

And then there was the kitchen.

I got wrapped up in something at work yesterday morning, and I got home later than I expected. So I didn`t have a chance to straighten up, and this included emptying the dishwasher and cleaning up the dirty dishes from dinner the night before. And there were breakfast toast crumbs all over the kitchen, on top of the dinner "layer" from the night before.

My parents were already there, when I got home (they insisted on taking a taxi from the airport instead of having me pick them up).

"I wiped your kitchen counters," said my father. "They were filthy. They were covered with shit! How can you live like this?"

"Crumbs happen!" I said cheerfully.

"But what was all that green stuff smeared everywhere?"

"I think it was avocado from Hub`s sandwich. Oh, wait -- maybe it was mint chocolate chip ice cream. Did you sniff it before you wiped it?"

He visibly recoiled.

"And your fish tank is disgusting!"

"Yes, but the fish are still alive, right? Well....except for that one," I said, quickly grabbing the floater. "And hey, look at those shiny fridge shelves! How about that?"

I knew my germ obsessive-compulsive father was just extra grumpy because the airport security people made him surrender his Purell hand-sanitizing lotion. But the guard took pity on him and let him use it one last time, before he turned it in.

Oh, we`re going to have so much fun!

To The Young Women Who Whacked My Car With Her Purse in Front of the Japan Center Today

(Ahem.)

I looked both ways when I pulled slowly out of the driveway. You were obviously in a hurry, and upset that I pulled out in front of you, as you rushed down the sidewalk. So you WHACKED the side of my minivan with your purse, in which you were carrying an anvil or some other heavy object, because there`s a DENT there now.

I am generally a polite driver who yields to pedestrians, and would ordinarily have said "Sorry!" to you, even if I believed I was not at fault.

However, after your response, I am sorry only for not running over your foot.

Please keep up your obnoxious behavior. Someday you will whack the car of a crazy, gun-carrying wingnut, and get more than you deserve.

Little Son Gets It!

Hub to Little Son: "Wouldn`t you like a baby brother or sister?" (No, Hub hasn`t given up yet. How many years until menopause?)

Little Son: "NO! NO! NO! NO! I HATE BABIES!" And then, after a pause, "I`m your baby!"

Then yesterday as we were leaving for the babysitter`s house, Little Son put down the toy he had planned to bring with him.

"I don`t want one of the babies to lick it," he explained.

Little Son is a tot after my own heart.

Do-It-Yourself-Match-Dot-Com

Hey, does anyone in the Washington, DC area want to date my Uncle Bob?

This offer is limited to identifiable regular readers of my blog, or friends of theirs, in the interest of protecting UB from Internet predators.

(And UB, if you`re reading this, and you`re mortified, don`t worry -- not only is this blog anonymous, but we don`t even have the same last name, anyway. Besides, you`re the only member of our family who reads it. )

UB is in his mid-50`s, computer geek, very dry sense of sarcastic humor, not too tall, bearded, healthy, non-smoker, not at all fat, and has a bunch of dogs. He`s been married before -- long story, which he`d better tell himself, but I wanted to throw that in because divorced guys are often very different from never-married guys. UB is definitely NOT a never-married guy.

I would have taken the kids to visit UB this summer, but we blew all our spare cash on that trip to Japan. The kids like UB --- most of the time, he leaves them alone, but when he interacts with them, he tends to treat them like tiny grownups. In fact, this is how he treats his dogs, too -- like short, furry people. Do not bother meeting UB if you don`t like dogs.

Oh, and UB and his college friends gave me my first sip of beer when I was two.

Who can possibly resist a guy like that?

Rodent Control (UPDATED)

Hey, I got a nice comment from Mr. V. Ole, who says,

I believe that voles are misunderstood. They are harmless creatures who thoughtfully aerate your lawn with their careful cultivation, ensuring generations of healthy above-ground greenery. For this vital service, voles ask little in return, save the occasional water-lily (they might be only $6.99, but remember, voles do not have pockets, and therefore do not carry wallets). And you, human- I mean, you, My Fellow Person- have been cruel to them. We voles- I mean, Those voles- did not deserve to be murdered! First we came for the water lilies! Next, we come for the house!I mean... good day to you.

Good day to you, too, Mr. V. Ole, and please stay out of my garden, or you will be tasting metal. Thanks!

Besides, it wasn`t any vole that dug up my water lilies -- voles are too small to have hauled out the heavy root planters, and they`re not known for their teamwork in lifting (nor can they rent tiny forklifts, because the State of California doesn`t issue them drivers licences at this time). It was definitely some much stronger animal.

Today, my next-door neighbor said he saw one of these. Was this sighting an omen, on the eve of my parents` visit?

By the way, Mr. Vole -- racoons and skunks are carnivores, and eat small mammals, like....voles.

Think about that, okay? *

(*UPDATED to add, I thought about this, too, and realized that maybe if I hadn`t killed the vole, the raccoon might have eaten it instead of my water lily -- so I probably managed to screw up both my backyard food chain, AND my rodent karma! I realized all that while I was reading the blog of my favorite rat lover, who always tells me more about rats than I ever hope I need to know.)

Now, excuse me, I`ve got to go clean the refrigerator, before my mother sees it and has a field day nagging me about it.*

(*UPDATED to add, the fridge is now clean enough to perform surgery on its sterile, gleaming surfaces -- but then I noticed the fish tank looks as if a sludge bomb exploded inside it. I toyed with the idea of telling my mother, "It`s supposed to look like that -- it`s a special algae ecosystem," or even, "We`re growing our own penicillin to save a little money," but instead, it looks as if I have one last household project to tackle before the mother hen comes to peck her chick to death.
Oh... sorry for all those metaphors...that must have been painful to read....)

Sunday, Funday

Sunday is not a day of rest when one`s annoying parents are arriving in less than 48 hours.

I did, however, manage to slip away and get to church this morning, and think peaceful thoughts for an hour or so.

Today I was thinking, I really love the backs of the pews at our church. They`re painted brown, but decades of praying hands resting on the tops have worn all the paint away, exposing the wood (and, along the edges, what appears to be an even older layer of gray paint -- the church was built in the `20`s). The wood grain is wide -- oak, maybe?

I could spend all day standing, sitting, kneeling, and staring at that wood.

Maybe I was a carpenter in a past life?

Or a termite?

Anyway, moving right along.... the mass ended, we went in peace, etc. I came home to face the rest of my day.

Oh, to totally change the subject, here`s some news: we just joined the YMCA.

There is an excellent reason for this. Hub was about to join one of the expensive, trendy downtown gyms.

"I need to exercise more and get back in shape. I would go twice a week, after work," he insisted.

I know Hub --- what does he do, if he has any time after work? He hurries home to dinner and the kids. He would probably go twice a MONTH, at most, meaning that each workout session would cost us $50-plus dollars.

So, for about the price of his fancy gym, I went down and signed us up for a family membership at the YMCA.

I had thought about joining the Y before, because my kids like to swim. However, I had always decided against another monthly expense, and figured I would just take them to swim at some of the local public pools. And since the thought of looking at myself in a swimsuit turned my stomach, I somehow never got around to doing this, ever. Not even once, in the whole first year we lived here.

"Here," I said to Hub, handing him his membership card. "There`s a few Y branches downtown. Pick one, and start working out."

So I successfully headed off the wasting-money-on-the-rarely-used-fancy-gym-membershp problem, but now I have a new problem: the kids want to go to the pool with me.

Meaning I have to see myself in a swimsuit again.

Oh, the horror....

Nature Stikes Back

So yesterday I killed a poor innocent little vole (that is, innocent of everything except chomping bare spots in the lawn and honeycombing it with tunnel openings, but that was all in its job description).

Today, I noticed that the water lilies I was growing in a pot in the garden are......GONE!

I don`t just mean the flowers, because actually, they hadn`t even bloomed yet. I mean the roots and everything -- there was just an empty plastic root container floating in the water.

Did a rogue gardener steal them, perhaps? We do have a gate to the front, but our backyard is completely enclosed, and invisible from the street. We also live in a quiet, almost suburban corner of the city.

I do like to imagine it was some impoverished flower lover who did it -- someone who can`t afford to pay $6.99 at a pond supply store for a potted minature water lily, and is now furtively nurturing mine, in some shabby but lovely garden of stolen foliage.

But I think it`s more likely it ended up in the stomach of one of these.

Maybe it was a pal of the little vole`s?

Yeah, I know. I deserved it.

Question of the Day

I called my parents tonight, and my father asked me, "So....are you planning your retirement?"

They arrive Tuesday. Oh no, I`m not counting down -- oh no no no, not at all.

On their last visit, my mother was taking a couple dozen naps a day, sometimes snoozing off in mid-sentence, and I was worried about her. She suddenly seemed very old, and very out of it.

This time, however, she will be well-rested, and back to her usual sharp-edged self. She was recently diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and now sleeps using some sort of breathing device at night.

So I will get to hear them ask questions like, "Are you planning your retirement?" in STEREO.

Let`s play a game. I will award a prize to the person who correctly guesses how many of the following questions they`ll ask me next week -- with bonus points for predicting any questions I failed to anticipate:

1) "Are you exercising?"

2) "Are you planning to do anything about your weight?"

3) "When do you plan on working fulltime again?"

4) "Are you REALLY feeding them THAT for dinner?"

5) "Isn`t it their bedtime now?"

6) "When was the last time you cleaned this?"

7) "Haven`t they watched enough TV for one day?"

8) "Don`t they read anything besides Japanese comic books?"

9) "Are you planning for their college educations?"

10) "Where are all your bodies buried?"

Okay, so I was only kidding about the last one -- but the answer is, in the backyard.

I killed another vole today. It was a small one, and it was really cute. I cried afterward.

I really have to start outsourcing our rodent control, because the stress of murdering them in cold blood like that, combined with mentally preparing myself for my parents` visit, is going to drive me over the edge.

Whoops....

Right before it was time to leave the house this morning, Little Son had a huge glass of chocolate milk.

It was all over his face -- he had a chocolate "moustache," and even sort of a goatee.

I made him look at his face in the mirror, and we had a good laugh about it.

Then I washed it off, and brought him to the babysitter's house.

As I was driving away, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror -- YAAAA!

I guess at some point I let Little Son kiss me without thinking about it, because I had chocolate lip-shaped smudges all over my cheeks.

Too bad I'd already taken him to the babysitter's house -- otherwise, I would have let him lick them off.

Time Warp

Little Son did just fine yesterday, with his new babysitter for a few hours.

But he said he doesn`t want to go back today, because "There were too many babies there! They yelled in my ears!"

That`s life, kid.

Time for a Tokyo flashback, to our recent trip:

I took Little Son to visit his old hoikuen, his public daycare center in our neighborhood.

He loved it there. He started when he was a few weeks shy of his first birthday, and went there every weekday for over two years. The hoikuen operates on a Japanese school calendar, meaning that April 1 is the cutoff point for each level (i.e., all children who are six years old by April 1 enter first grade). Because Little Son was born in April, he was not one year old by April 1st, and therefore he went into the "zero-year-old" class.

Can I tell you how badly he fit in there, with the tiny "zero-year-old`s?" He was like Godzilla -- stomping over to babies just learning to roll over and dropping toys on their heads. BAM!

For a few months, he was allowed to play with the one-year-old class in the room next door, until a few of his own classmates started to catch up to him developmentally. One little girl learned to walk, so one of the teachers would strap another baby to her back, and take the two walkers out to toddle around in the playground.

I wouldn`t call Little Son a natural leader by any means, but just because he was the oldest, he did everything first, and his classmates copied him. Once, at lunchtime, he decided it would be fun to spit his milk out and spray the table. The three teachers watched, horrified, as nine other little kids all spit their milk out, too.

Little Son soon knew all of his classmates` names. He would regale us daily with Japanese babytalk-tales of their antics, much of which I could barely understand, except for the names.

After we moved here, he kept telling us he "missed his Japanese school," and reciting all his friends` names. These declarations became less frequent as time passed, especially after he started preschool here and made new friends, but he seemed really happy when I told him we would visit his old hoikuen in the summer.

We arrived at the hoikuen, and all the teachers rushed over to hug Little Son. It was a heartwarming reunion, and expected a similar one when he went into the classroom to see his old friends.

It didn`t happen that way at all.

"Here`s Little Son! He`s come back!" his teacher told his class, and they all came running over.

And stopped.

And stared.

"That`s not Little Son," said one boy. "Little Son was a little boy. He`s a big boy."

Little Son had an identical reaction.

"Those aren`t my friends! My friends were little. Those kids are big."

What a difference a year makes, in a kid`s development. The year between three and four is a yawning chasm. I had forgotten this.

Little Son turned to go.

I tried visiting the hoikuen with him one more time, but the result was the same. Little Son was as disinterested in playing with his old friends as they were in playing with him.

So he spent the rest of our Tokyo trip tagging along after his big brother, and playing with the four-year old son of my friend with whom we were staying.

And he started asking me, when could he go back to his preschool in San Francisco, and play with all his "new big boy friends?"

Oh well. I tried.

Confused Palate?

I bought some thin-sliced pork in Japantown yesterday and made rice and nabe for dinner last night. I kept it simple so the kids would eat it -- heavy on the meat, light on the spices.

Hub tried a bite, chewed it thoughtfully, and then went into the kitchen.

He came back with a big jar of pesto from Costco, and proceeded to mix a large quantity of it into his bowl.

"Mmmmmm...." he said, as he shovelled the mixture into his mouth. "That was just what it needed!"

Can someone please tell me why I bother to cook Japanese food?

Reality Bites

It was such a lovely weekend -- the beach, my friends, their beautiful house, good food.... and now, back to my less-than-lovely reality.

First, Hub played the videos of our trip, and I was forced to look at myself in a swimsuit. I had no illusions that I looked good, but I was still startled by just how NOT GOOD I looked, holding Little Son`s hand in the surf. My white, lumpy thighs look even worse, surrounded by tan young bikini-clad things. Wasn`t it just a few years ago that I was a tan young bikini-clad thing myself? What happened?

Then I talked to my parents, who will be visiting us next week.

"You know I`m starting this new job, so I`ll be working in the mornings," I reminded them.

"Oh, that`s great timing," they said, with that sarcastic edge in their voices.

"You`re working every day? For how many hours?" my mother asked.

"Just two," I said, "from 9:30 to 11:30 or so. Just 10 hours a week."

"That is the most ridiculous thing I`ve ever heard!" they said. "What a waste of time! It`s not worth the time you`ll spend commuting!"

"Why can`t you work your ten hours all in one day?" my mother asked. "It would be more efficient that way."

"Well, no -- it`s a show-your-face kind of job. He wants me there everyday. And I`m the one who wants to leave at 11:30, because Little Son`s preschool ends at noon everyday."

"How about [your former employer?] I thought you were going back to work for them fulltime! What happened to that?" my father asked.

"I want to be here when the kids get home from school," I said.

Now, let me explain what an inflammatory statement that is, in our particular family.

My father`s sister was a stay-at-home for many years, while her daughters were small. They`re now college-age, and my aunt is now working fulltime as a high school teacher. My aunt did part-time office work when her daughters started school, and at one job interview (for a job she got), she told her potential employer outright, "I need to be home when my girls get home from school."

My mother, being a Linda Hirschman feminist who believed women should work, thought this was ridiculous, that my aunt even mentioned her kids at a job interview, and then stated that her schedule revolved around them. How unprofessional!

So when I repeated this oft-mocked line, I could hear my mother sneer, as she took the bait.

"Oh, great! You sound just like your Aunt M.! I guess you`re just like her now!"

Since I`ve never had anything against my Aunt M. (in fact, I rather like her), these words failed to wound me, and just gave me more ammunition.

"Yeah, I guess I am!" I cheerfully agreed.

"Isn`t it funny -- you made fun of Aunt M. all those years, and now you`re just like her!" said my father.

"Um, Dad? I never made fun of Aunt M. It was always Mom making fun of Aunt M.," I said. It`s always disconcerting, when he gets my opinions mixed up with my mother`s -- is it that hard to tell us apart?

My father changed the subject, and we talked about something else for 10 minutes or so, until the topic turned to my brother`s son.

"He can already read!" my mother said. "He taught himself to read!"

"Didn`t he just finish kindergarten? Don`t they teach kids to read in some kindergartens nowadays?" I asked, knowing that my brother`s son attends a very posh private school in Manhattan that probably has its kids reading Ancient Greek by the time they finish kindergarten.

"No, he taught himself to read," my mother insisted. Okay, whatever -- I wasn`t going to argue with her on that one.

"You were reading when you were three," my mother continued, "but you didn`t teach yourself. I taught you. And then I taught the three year-old next-door neighbor boy to read, too, and he wasn`t very bright, so that`s how I know it was my teaching, and it had nothing to do with you being smart or anything."

I do remember her teaching me to read. I also remember the mother of the three year-old next-door neighbor boy was appalled that my mother had taught her son to read -- she worried it would screw up his development somehow, and I wasn`t allowed to play with him anymore. And he had been my only friend.

"You used to have all your books memorized," my mother continued. "Sometimes we`d read them wrong on purpose, because you used to get really upset. It was so cute, how upset you got."

"How often did you do that?" I asked.

"Often," they said in unison.

Wow,　I had no idea, that their upsetting me on purpose just to enjoy my reaction went back to my earliest childhood.

How did I ever grow up to be a normal, functioning adult?

Oh, wait.....

Nevermind.

Actual Conversation

Sorry for the posting lag -- we just got back from a weekend in Carpenteria, a beach town south of Santa Barbara. We had a great time seeing old friends. It was well worth the total of 12 hours we spent driving there and back, which says a lot.

Tonight, after we got back, I asked Daughter, "Did you feed the guinea pigs?"

She moaned and groaned.

"Why don`t you pay me for all the things I do?" she huffed.

"I do -- I pay you in love," I said.

"I`d rather get money."

Oh, she learns fast.

More Fun with My Site Meter

To the person who found my blog searching, "can I let my partner taste my breastmilk" --- you have my blessing. Go for it.

To the person who found it searching, "affair with dentist" ---- how bizarre. And if you knew my dentist (Dr. Enatsu, in Tokyo), you would think it was even more bizarre. He looks too young to shave, let alone practice dentistry or have affairs.

And while following up someone`s rodent control-related search, I came across this this article, which makes me think I`d better sand off those notches in my shovel. (It must be said that the mayor of Nice`s actions appear to have been an unprovoked attack, whereas mine were in defense of my home and family.)

To the anonymous commenter a few days ago who asked me about kids` Japanese classes in Berkeley....

...I have no idea. Sorry. Anyone out there know?
Anon, you might try joining the Berkeley Parents Network, and posting an inquiry there.
Good luck

Airport Security Update

Can I just tell you how grateful I am, that our big trip to Japan was BEFORE the latest round of heightened airport security?

I got a call this morning from a friend flying out of Seattle. She got to the airport three hours early, expecting huge security delays, but was glad to see all of the gate checkpoints fully staffed, and the lines moving quickly.

They made her dump her coffee -- a small price to pay, to fly safely, but I understand how much that must have pained her to do. Coffee is a terrible thing to waste, especially early in the morning -- and especially local Seattle coffee.

Inside the gate, she found the huge lines she had anticpated, just in a slightly different place: at the Starbucks counter, as travelers replaced their surrendered beverages.

One step back for the terrorists, one step forward for Big Business.

A Little Story About a Knock on the Door

My lunch got called off, so I didn`t leave Little Son with the babysitter after all. I think this is a good thing, because he clearly has a cold, and I don`t want to make a first impression as "The Mom Who Brought Her Snot-Nosed Kid Here to Cough All Over Us."

Hmmmm.....What kind of Google ads will I get from those words? "Natural Cold Remedies?" "Get Rid of Snot Forever?" A friend emailed me yesterday to say that she was seeing ads for "Toe Nail Fungus Treatment" on my site. And there seems to have been a recent spate of "Child Abuse Lawyer" ads, too -- what the hell is going on here?

I really miss those "Rodent Control" ads. People c*l*i*c*k*e*d on them, y`know? And that, my friends, is that it`s all about.

Okay, here`s the little story I promised in my title:

Yesterday, there was a faint knock at the door. I thought it was the kids fooling around -- they had just been out playing in our front yard and driveway.

I opened the door, and there was a frantic old woman in sun dress. "Ivan?" she asked. "Ivan? Ivan?" And then she said something in what I recognized as Russian, but understood not a word.

Sometimes, the little Russian boy from across the street comes over to play with my kids, if he sees them out front. (This is the kid whose family put up their Christmas tree the day after Christmas, which I thought was an ingenious way to get a discount on a holiday tree. )

I had a feeling -- just a hunch -- that Daughter was showing Ivan our guinea pigs. So I told the woman, "Please wait," and ran though the house to the gararge. Sure enough, there was Ivan, with Little Son, Daughter and the three little pigs.

I sent Ivan up to talk to the old woman.

She seemed satisfied that the people across the street were not ax muderers, and, Ivan`s whereabouts confirmed, she turned to go.

“Spaciba!” she called out to me, which is one of the three Russian words I know.

Is it my imagination, or is that story not very interesting after all?

It seemed much more compelling, when we were harboring a Russian fugitive.

Home Alone?

Well, the babysitter was great.

For those of you who commented about choosing babysitters, I will say that choosing someone for an infant has more issues than choosing one for a talkative, 4-year old preschooler -- especially a kid who will only go part-time for a few weeks, until his preschool starts again. And this place came recommended by at least a dozen of our neighbors whose opinions I trust, not even one of whom had anything less than wonderful to say about this woman and her home. If she has the space available and knows the parents, she accepts last-minute drop-ins, so needless to say she was very popular with the neighborhood stay-at-home moms who needed a few hours here and there for errands or doctor appointments.

So for more relevant advice, I will send you to the incomparable Mary P., everyone`s favorite daycare provider. I remember she wrote something on this very topic once? Mary, didn`t you write about what to look for, when choosing a babysitter? I couldn`t find it -- was it a comment on someone else`s blog? Or am I dreaming?

Anyway, our new babysitter is Chinese and her husband is white, so her now-grown children, photos of whom hang on the walls, resemble my own. Her house is a lovely restored high-ceilinged Victorian, with skylights to dispel the gloom which so often plagues that era`s architecture. There are soft Oriental rugs covering most of the hardwood floors, and there was a bouquet of sunflowers on the dining room table.

More significantly, there were safety gates in all the right places, and the kids were playing with age-appropriate toys. There`s an enclosed deck in the backyard, with a tall fence and gate and lots of cool ride-on toys. The place was immaculate, including the kitchen, and the other kids there were all clean and happy.

She told me on the phone that she usually doesn`t take kids over three years old, unless they started with her as babies. So I dressed up Little Son in his most baby-ish Thomas the Tank Engine teeshirt and brightly-colored shorts. But he insisted on wearing his geta, so he went CLOP CLOP CLOP like a Clydesdale, kind of ruining the whole effect.

She seemed hesitant when I first called her last week, but she didn`t seem to think twice about accepting us, and I wonder if she`s already asked around about us. I had name-dropped all the many kids I know who`ve been under her care over the years, including our landlord`s daughter and several of our friends who live in the neighborhood (and her own kids went to my older kids` Catholic school, too). I`ve been hearing good things about this babysitter since we moved here last year, but as we`ve had an au pair until now, I haven`t had any reason to call her.

Little Son will go there for a few hours tomorrow, while I go to lunch with my old friend/new boss, and he will start going there for three hours every morning, from Aug. 15 until his preschool starts or our au pair comes back, whichever comes first.

But she doesn`t take older kids, so Big Son and Daughter will be on their own for a few hours, for that week before their school starts.

Were they scared when I told them this? No -- they smiled.

BIG smiles.

Should I worry?

Big Son is 11 and going into sixth grade, and Daughter is 9 and going into fourth. In Japan, there would be no question that kids that old would be okay on their own -- and in fact, they used to walk to and from school by themselves, when they were even younger than that.

But this is not Japan.

Does anyone have any advice, on leaving older kids alone?

Here are the house rules I`ve made so far:

-- No using the stove or microwave. (The microwave seems safer, but Daughter has burned popcorn before, and I don`t want to take the chance of any flaming objects in my absence.)

-- No playing in the front yard or driveway -- front door must remain locked. Playing in the (enclosed, private) backyard is okay.

-- If you answer the phone, tell the caller your mother/father "can`t come to the phone."

-- Do not answer the door -- UNLESS you`re in the living room with the curtains open in full sight of the person knocking, and we don`t want them to think, "Here is a kid home alone who is not answering the door." In that case, answer it with the chain locked, and tell them your mother/ father "is sleeping now, so please come back later."

-- No friends can come over when you`re alone.

I will leave them a list of phone numbers: my cell, 911 (with instructions never to call that one unless someone is unconscious, on fire or threatened by a criminal breaking in), and the number of the babysitter, who lives a few blocks away (not very close, though -- maybe a 15-minute walk) . Many of our immediate neighbors aren`t around most days, but there`s a widow a few doors down who`s often home during the day, and I will probably ask her if it`s okay to tell the kids to go to her in a dire emergency.

Anyone out there have any more ideas or suggestions?

Leaving My Tokyo Reverie for a Moment to Update You All on my Real Life Now Unfolding

Today we have an interview with a babysitter.

Why? you might ask.

Well, last Friday, our Au Pair Extraordinaire returned to her native country of Taiwan. Her au pair year is all through, so her plan now is to come back and start classes at SF State on September 13, and prepare to take U.S. nurse licensing exams (she was a nurse in Taiwan, but needs to brush up her medical English). If all goes well, she will get her student visa in time and return. She won`t be an official au pair anymore, but will live with us in exchange for babysitting. What a concept -- a free live-in babysitter, a wonderful, responsible young woman whom my kids love, and who can even handle medical emergencies.

The catch? Oh, she might not get her student visa in time, in which case she will just stay in Taiwan, and I will mail her all the possessions she left in a big box in her old room.

The box is taunting me -- will I mail it? Or will she come back to us and unpack it? The suspense is killing me. I keep the door to her room shut, so I don`t have to look at it.

Some of you might be wondering, why do I need a babysitter at all, if I`m not working?

Ah, now here`s where I buried the lead of this post: I`m starting a part-time job on August 15.

Isn`t this funny? For one solid year, I had fulltime, live-in daycare and wasn`t working (a situation explained here) , and right after Au Pair Extraordinaire leaves, I`m supposed to start working. Life is like that.

Now, the job -- you want to hear about it, don`t you? Oh, you know you do.

A friend of mine is a property manager, and his company will be taking over the management of --hmmmm, how can I describe it, without having it come up in Google searches? Let me try this: a complex of shops in the city whose primary tenants are Japanese, and whose recent sale triggered all sorts of controversy. Oh, wait -- I can just link an article on it. Good -- now even those of you from out of town can understand what I`m talking about.

When I was in Tokyo, I got an email from my friend, saying his company got this management deal, and asking if Hub or I knew of anyone who spoke Japanese and wanted a part-time job, just 10-15 hours a week, talking to tenants and keeping track of their concerns. They wouldn`t have to collect rent or do anything like that -- his office will take care of all that. It`s really just a "show your face and talk to people and listen to their problems" job.

"HIRE ME! ME! ME!!!" I wrote to him, and he did. He was surprised I wanted it, since it pays very little. But hey -- I`m cleaning up old people`s dirty lunch trays for FREE now, just to get to speak a little Japanese and keep in peripheral touch with the culture I miss. I will think of this job as community service for which I receive a small honorarium.

And of course my friend is clear that when Little Son starts kindergarten, I will most likely heed the call of the fulltime paycheck again, so I can only make a one-year commitment to this. He said that`s fine.

The timing isn`t quite perfect: the big kids` school starts Aug. 24, Little Son`s preschool doesn`t start until Sept. 6, and I need to start showing up every day on Aug. 15.

So, off to my babysitter meeting. I`ll let you know how it goes.

To the person in the UK who found my blog searching "how to dispose of a dead guinea pig...."

....you have my sympathies.

May I suggest you first place its little body in a brown paper bag. Then, find a person who doesn`t speak English, babble and gesticulate wildly, and hand the bag to him.

It works for rats.

The Recent Past and the Not-So Recent Past

Welcome, Baun and Jessica. I hereby begin an attempt to welcome every reader who takes the time to introduce him/herself in comments, as a pathetic attempt to bestow links on friendly folks, to make amends for my ridiculously long and still woefully incomplete blogroll. (And Jessica, I think JPII really missed out on a great opportunity when he dissed liberation theology.)

I still haven`t written much about our trip to Japan, have I? I`ve been too busy doing laundry, restocking the fridge, watering our dead lawn, conquering my jet lag and keeping bored children from wreaking (too much) havoc to properly get it all down -- it will come in dribs and drabs.

Here`s a drib:

Our old neighborhood association had a homecoming party for us, at an abandoned school they`ve informally seized.

Big Son and Daughter both attended the school (Iigura Shogakko) before Minato Ward closed it due to dropping enrollment, and merged the students into another school. The "Town-Making" neighborhood association, formally known as the "Higashi-Azabu Machi-Tsukuri Kyogi-Kai," is made up mostly of the former PTA of the school, and it now organizes local festivals and other events.

The bottom two floors of the old school are being used as a temporary hoikuen, or public daycare center, while Iikura Hoikuen is being totally rebuilt. The top two floors of the school are being used by the Machi-Tsukuri Kyogi-Kai. They`ve got all the old PTA stuff up there -- the hideous velveteen sofa, the refrigerators, the microwave. Someday, Minato Ward will likely dream up some use for the school building that won`t allow the neighborhood association to use it so freely, but for now, it`s a wonderful informal gathering place. (And the "guerilla garden" we all planted in the schoolyard is thriving -- a few sprigs of mint I planted have now taken over an entire bed.)

During its 125-year history, the school was rebuilt several times, and destroyed by both the 1923 earthquake and the Tokyo firebombings. The current building was built in the 1970`s, I think.

On the walls of the Machi-Tsukuri Kyogi-Kai`s main room are photos of all the old principals of Iikura Shogakko, which go back to the 1880`s. One early principal is even wearing a formal kimono. During the years leading up to WWII, there`s a profound change in the appearances of the principals: they start to have eyeglasses and little moustaches just like the Showa Emperor. That look seems to have gone out of fashion after the war -- gee, wonder why!

Yes, some people spend their vacations at the beach, others go to the mountains, but I chose to spend mine hanging out and drinking beer in an abandoned school. At this venue, our old friends made yakisoba and microwavable tako-yaki for us. Our gift to everyone was a large quantity of Ghirardhelli chocolate.

"That was the first English I ever learned," one older man said to me.

"What was?"

"Give me chocolate, please. I was four years old. I saw a big boy say it to the American MP`s over near the ward office, and they gave him a Hersey bar. So I tried it, and it worked."

The man is only in his early 60`s, so I wouldn`t have guessed he would be old enough to remember the American Occupation of Japan, but I guess he was Little Son`s age.

Hearing this man`s story gave my kids a visceral understanding that 1) the American military police used to occupy our neighborhood, and 2) chocolate used to be a precious commodity.

For this -- and many other reasons -- I miss our neighborhood association. I was raised with a grandmother in our house, so I took for granted the link between old and new, and the appreciation it gave me of my own circumstances.

When I heard my grandmother`s stories about her old icebox with its drippy block of ice, I appreciated modern conveniences. When I heard her stories about her mother dying at home after giving birth to her brother, who then didn`t survive infancy, and her own scary appendectomy in the days before antibiotics, I appreciated my access to modern medicine. When I heard her stories about leaving school when she was 14 to work as a waitress during the Depression, I appreciated my education.

Without constant access to a grandparent, I have to work harder to give my kids an awareness of the past that I received as naturally as breathing.

Afterthought: Naked Maternal One-upmanship

Read the post under this one first, if you haven`t already.

A comment by Illahee on my last post set my addled, jet-lagged brain whirling off on another tangent involving nakedness: onsen, Japanese hot springs.

Also, while catching up on Kristen`s blog, I stumbled across these words of great wisdom:

(...W)e've been taking the kids to the neighborhood pool in the evenings. People, if you've ever doubted the love I have for my children, THAT should clear things up for you. I go to a public location and walk around in a bathing suit, an article of clothing that exposes - no, accentuates - the parts of my body that I work the hardest to disguise in every other situation in my life, JUST SO MY KIDS CAN HAVE FUN.

This is so true. Last month, I took my kids to public pools in both Kyoto and Tokyo.

The Kyoto pool wasn`t so bad, because many of the people who were using it seemed to have some sort of physical disability. I mean, no one is going to stare at the fat gaijin woman`s huge white ass of Melville-esque marine mammalian proportions, when they can instead ogle people missing limbs. (Hey, even I was impressed watching the breast-stroking prowess of the one-legged old lady.)

The Tokyo pool was much, much worse.

Most Japanese public pools have rules against eyeglasses, ostensibly for safety reasons, but mostly because Japanese lifeguards love blowing their little whistles and like to think of every reason to do so. And glasses are now my only option for sight -- I no longer have any contact lenses since I ran out, and haven`t yet gone back for more.

I went to the Kyoto pool with just my own three kids, so I took off my glasses and viewed them as mere blurs in the water with me. However, in Tokyo, I had a couple of extra kids with me, including another 4-year-old, and I had to keep a closer eye on them. (This is known as Thy Neighbor`s Kid Rule: Thou must not take the same half-assed attitude in caring for Thy Neighbor`s Kids that you irresponsibly take with your own.)

I tried to go in to the kids` pool with my glasses, and lasted all of five seconds before, Fweeeeee! I got the whistle and the reprimand. I tried going in to the water without my glasses, but I kept losing sight of the watery blur that was my friend`s little son, and panicking until I located him (usually a few inches in front of my face).

So I sighed, hefted my bulk out of the water, put on my glasses and sat on a bench next to the pool for two hours to watch all the kids, my enormous white flanks and ham-like upper arms glowing luminously under the flourescent pool lights for all to see. I`m surprised the lifeguards didn`t blow their whistles at me and make me cover up the glare, which might have distracted and inconvenienced other swimmers.

Here comes the "one-upmanship" part: last year, I took Daughter on a trip with a group of neighbors to Hakone, to an onsen.

It`s one thing to go to a pool, it`s another to go to a naked hot spring resort. And it`s one thing to let total strangers see you naked, but it`s another thing to reveal yourself to the group of skinny Japanese women who live in your neighborhood, with whom you spend a substantial amount of your leisure time.

I remember we all managed to avoid eye contact, until someone`s sweet, 3-year old girl asked me, "Why are your oppai so big and saggy?" (Do I even have to translate that word for those of you who don`t speak Japanese? Oh, okay, here: @@ )

Everyone looked at me and laughed. There was another round of laughter a few minutes later when I got in the water, and the same little girl observed, "They float!"

Oh, the things we do, for our children....

A Flagrant Attempt to Lure Back Readers with a Post About Bare Naked Boobs

Funny -- I go away for a few weeks and post only sporadically, and now return to find my daily hits have dropped by two-thirds. Is everyone on vacation, or do I smell? (...sniff, sniff... hmmmmm. No, nothing that a little Febreze can`t fix....) Or have I just gotten boring, and too wrapped up in our homesickness, my posts too rambling and unfocused...? Sorry, but until I conquer my jet lag, that`s the way it`s got to be.

Let`s see what else I missed in the "mommy blog" world while I was away.

A journalist in the UK wrote a piece in the Daily Mail entitled, "Sorry, but my children bore me to death!" She seems to have caused quite a kerfuffle on the other side of the pond, but her piece left me confused. I read it and wondered, 1) if she really hates being with her kids all of the time, why did she have one, let alone two of them? And 2) if she really does NOT hate being with her kids ALL the time, only SOME of the time, then what`s the point of her article? Surely, kids` birthday parties, movies, games and playdates can be downright tedious for most grownups -- isn`t she just stating the obvious? In addition to all the fun, all the love, all the wonder, parenting brings all kinds of crap, too. To use what is lately my addled brain`s favorite word: DUH!

Tertia`s BOOK came out! Congrats! I hope it`s out in the U.S. soon, too.

Tertia also wrote a post linking to this site, on which women are invited to post "before" and "after" photos of the effects of childbearing on their bodies.

I am fascinated by the different photos, and also by the women`s candor in posting them. I must say, my belly got off easy, compared to some of these women`s. I don`t have any stretch marks, and while three c-sections did leave their mark, at least the flab above the scar is quite smooth.

But I am contemplating posting before and after photos of my breasts, which would be very dramatic.

I have some nice "before" shots, thanks to my college roommate. D. was a math major and a studio art minor, and I posed for her a lot. I think she first put it this way: "If you`re going to be sitting still studying anyway, can you just take your clothes off so I can draw you?" It was easy to oblige (and it was a women`s college, too).

The only problem came senior year, when she was taking a photo class. I was a bit more concerned about having naked photos of myself in existence than drawings (and this was before the Internet). She assured me she would crop my face out of every shot.

Well, except that she had to show her professor her proof sheet for her final critique, so someone got to see more of me than I really wanted to show him.

"You`re not even taking any classes with him! He`ll never even remember who you are!" my friend assured me.

She was wrong. He came over to me at an art show opening and introduced himself, and said, "You don`t know me, but I know you! You`re D.'s friend, the one from her photos!"

"Nice-to-meet-ya-gotta-run!" I babbled, dropped my drink, and fled.

True to her word, though, D. didn`t include my face in any of her prints -- but she did include my left leg, on which I have an unusual scar. (No exciting story there. I had a huge black birthmark cut out of my thigh in the dark ages before laser sugery.) My parents would have instantly recognized my leg, so I had to make up all kinds of excuses to keep them away from the student art show on Parents Weekend that year.

Anyway, thanks to D., I have some lovely "before" shots, of my 110-pound, lithe and perky 20-year old body, before two decades of gravity, three fullterm pregnancies and four years of breastfeeding exacted their toll.

A few years ago, D. sent me prints of what she considered her best shots. I showed them to Hub.

What was I thinking? He was too embarrassed to even look at them - pretty funny, since we were already dating back then, and he never seemed embarrassed to look at the actual body the photos depicted.

Oh, well. I don`t post photos on my blog, so I can`t share them with the Internet at large.

Here, use your imagination:

@@

What do you think? Pretty hot!

Something Old, Something New

Third Culture Kid(s) wrote this post last month, and reading it unleashed a floodgate of memories about traditional Japanese attire -- some from our recent trip, and some of my long-ago experiences. (American Family has touched on similar themes before.)

She makes this insightful point: Antique/pawn shop kimono generally don't work on white folks.

I agree -- I learned this the hard way. The first kimono I wore was a thrift store number, back in 1986 when I was a 20-year-old exchange student living with a homestay family in Kyoto.

I had kind of a weird homestay arrangement: I lived with a 75-year old Imperial Army veteran whose much-beloved wife had died six months before. The furniture in my room was still full of his late wife`s clothes. His family signed up to get him a homestay college student, in the hope that having a young, female live-in English teacher would cheer him up.

I think I did succeed in cheering him up sometimes and distracting him from his sorrow, but there was a key problem for ME with this arrangement. I was in Japan to improve my Japanese, which didn`t improve nearly as fast as that of the students who were in normal Japanese families, speaking it. The old man insisted on speaking to me entirely in English. I could have asked to change families, but 1) I really liked the old man; 2) I was a lazy-ass student in general, and this was especially true that year; and 3) his stories were fascinating. I wanted to listen to him tell them forever, and falling further and further behind in aural Japanese comprehension seemed like a small price to pay.

Two weeks after I got to Japan, I met the Japanese college student who would later become my husband. The old man knew I was dating someone, and I think he was even a bit jealous.

On New Year`s Day, I got it into my head to dress up in a thrift-store kimono I`d bought. I still have it -- it`s dark green with kind of a modern pattern that looks like pine branches. It has short sleeves -- that and its muted color indicate it probably originally belonged to an older woman, since young women usually wear ones with bright colors and longer sleeves.

I thought both the old man and my Japanese boyfriend would get a real kick out of seeing me dressed in a kimono, but I couldn`t have been more wrong.

The old man`s daughter-in-law helped me put it on, and tied the flea market obi in the back, in an elaborate knot I could never have managed myself.

I went downstairs, and the old man refused to look at me. "You dressed up for your boyfriend. He should see you first," he pouted.

Future Hub came to pick me up, and drove me to Heian Jingu, a large shrine, where he took exactly one photo. It was a freezing day, and he wind lifted up the kimono hem so that my long underwear is peaking out in the photo -- real classy. Then he drove me home.

"Don`t you want to go anywhere else?" I asked.

"Um.... people are looking at you," he said.

So I went home and ate traditional Japanese New Year`s food with the old man and his family. The old man still had a pout on his face, and wouldn`t look at me.

Wow, I thought to myself, here I am in Kyoto, Japan! Wearing a kimono! Eating traditional Japanese New Year`s food! But somehow, my embarrassed boyfriend and the pouty old man managed to ruin the overall effect.

The following year, after I returned to my U.S. college, I hung the kimono on a bamboo pole on the wall of my dorm room. It looked really great -- or so I thought.

Future Hub visited me, and was embarrassed by it. Apparently, a kimono hanging on the wall is even more embarrassing than one hanging on a white girl.

Who knew?

Okay, that was the "old" part, now here`s the "new" part: while we were in Tokyo, my kids all bought geta, Japanese wooden sandal clogs (click on that link to see a neat old photo of a shoe store). We bought them from a store in our neighborhood, from the man who made them himself. Of course, the store sells mostly Western shoes now, but I was happy we were able to buy something traditional and handmade by someone we knew.

They wore these shoes all over Tokyo, and got some really funny looks. I think I understand why Hub was uncomfortable escorting kimono-clad me, all those years ago.

Because geta are wooden, they go CLOP CLOP CLOP with every step, calling attention to themselves.

Fortunately, Big Son, Daughter and Little Son are happily oblivious to the stares....for now.

And when my kids wear them, I always know where they are, because I can hear them a mile away.

Taking Inventory, and Assessing Blame

Can I just say.... it sucks to be back here?

This shows what a great time we had, now that we`re back and I wish we were still over there in Tokyo.

To be sure, our house is still lovely, and I`ve called a few of our new friends and it was great to talk to them and catch up. But I drove past the school today and thought, classes start in just three weeks -- and my stomach did a little flip-flop, as if I were the one going back to school.

Will it be as bad as last year was, for Big Son? He was so happy in Tokyo, and it made me realize that I barely saw him smile at all in the year after we left.

I know most of my heavy feeling is simply jet lag -- it hits me hard every time, and yet I often fail to factor it in to my bad mood.

So let me think positive about coming home. Hmmmmm.......

Well, for one, the guinea pigs are still alive, and Hub seems to actually like them now (which is a major milestone, considering his normal aversion to all living things). The birds are alive, too, and all of the animal cages are clean.

Two of the tropical fish perished, including the pretty blue beta, but fish are tricky like that. One day they`re swimming around, the next day they`re belly up, so I can`t blame Hub for their demise.

Unfortunately, where we once had a lovely green front lawn, we now have a fire hazard. It`s a tiny patch of lawn, and I would water it every day with the garden house, but Hub somehow just...forgot. He did water my flowers in the back, but somehow didn`t connect watering the back yard with the pressing need to water the front yard. May I just say, DUH???

So tonight, when he`s asleep, I will take revenge by putting Nair on his eyebrows.

Heh heh heh heh......

Appearances

I am very slowly catching up, reading blogs I haven`t seen in three weeks. Mo-Wo and P-Man had a baby -- congratulations! Gawdessness and her family welcomed a beautiful 7-year old girl and her 10-year old brother -- congratulations, times two! Granny was in SF last month for a Giants` game but we weren`t here. Some people I know went to BlogHer, and others did not -- alas, I missed it, because we were still in Japan. Misfit Hausfrau left Cincinnati. And there`s a new parenting advice blog out there, co-featuring the one and only Mary P.

I haven`t jumped around to get to everyone`s site yet, and I have left very few paw prints -- er, hair balls -- uh, comments behind, since I can`t always think of anything to say, except, "Hi! I`m back! Missed ya!" and my wonderful friends inside the computer might feel a bit, um...less than special, if I posted that very same comment on a few dozen blogs. So I plead jet lag, and will get to you when I get to you, in no particular order.

I will now share an unrelated Tokyo story:

Last week I was walking down the shopping street in our old neighborhood of Higashi-Azabu with Little Son. I stopped to talk to the shoe man`s mother, who is 86 and is one of the few Japanese women I know who still wears a kimono much of the time. She was with an elderly friend I`d never met before.

"What a cute little boy! Is he your son or your grandson?"

My fragile ego, already made of eggshells and cobwebs, disintergrated into a million tiny pieces on the hot pavement.

"He`s my son! How old do you think I am???" I asked, utterly aghast and horrified.

The old woman didn`t skip a beat. "I think you`re around 40," she guessed correctly. "When I was 40, I had a little grandchild his age."

Ah -- right. Different generation, different culture.

Lesson learned, to try harder to remember to put everything in context before jumping to an upsetting conclusion.

Then again, maybe I just look like a hag...?